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RATIONAL COSMOLOGY: 



OR 



THE ETERML PRmCIPLES AND THE NECESSARY 
LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 



BY 



LAUEEN^S P.'^HICKOK, D. D. 



UNION COLLEGE. 



NEW YOKE: 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY. 

346 & 348 BEOADWAY. 

LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN. 

1858. 



^^ 



i.^ 



^ 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 

LAURENS P. HICKOK, D. D. 

In the Clerk's Office cf the District Court of the United States for the Northern District 
of New York. 



PREFACE. 



Theee must somewhere be a position from wlience 
it may clearly be seen, that the universe has laws which 
are necessarily determined by immutable and eternal 
principles. ITothing in nature, and equally so not na- 
ture itself, can be made intelligible except as it has been 
subjected to rational principle, and such principle must 
both have been, and been made controlling, in the very 
origination of nature, or nature must forever be with- 
out meaning or end. That principle, then, to an all- 
perfect insight, must disclose within itself what the 
facts must be, and no induction of facts can at all be 
needed by the absolute reason. 

But the finite reason, with its partial insight, must 
have too limited a comprehension of the eternal princi- 
ple, to be able adequately to follow out all its deter- 
mined results from itself, without a reference to the 
facts that have been determined by it to guide his intu- 
itive processes. What already is must often help him 
to see what eternally must have been, and without the 
suggestive fact he would have failed to find the deter- 



4: PREFACE. 

minations of the principle. Still the mere facts in 
nature can never suffice to bring him to the eternal 
principle. E"o single fact, and no possible induction of 
facts, can give the principle; for all single facts are 
meaningless, and all induction of facts wholly aimless, 
except as some apprehension of the principle is already 
attained. Facts therefore are useless, and leave the 
insight helpless without some apprehension of the eter- 
nal principle ; but the apprehension of the principle is 
too inadequate to the finite reason, to permit the insight 
to follow out all its determinations without some refer- 
ence to the facts actually determined. It will thus ever 
be true for the finite human reason, that with the mere 
facts of nature he can never rise to any science of na- 
ture, and with the partial apprehension of the principle 
he can never follow it out in all its necessary determi- 
nations, and hence his only sure progress must be, first 
an apprehension of the principle, more or less inade- 
quately, and then a following out of the principle in its 
necessary laws by a reference to the actual facts that 
have already been determined by it. Pure principles 
will thus always be more clearly and completely read 
by the human mind where there is the most clear and 
complete possession of the actual facts, and the study 
of the principle in them and by them. The facts are 
nothing for philosophy except as seen to be determined 
in their principle, but they are much for philosophy 
when used by the insight for the development of the 
determinations of principle. 



PEEFACE- 5 

Inasmuch, then, as Nature is a rational creation, the 
Creator must have put his own idea into it, and the 
principles that determined in the making, must come 
out in its ongoing. The development of the determi- 
nations of the pure principle must harmonize with, be- 
cause they have necessitated, the laws in the actual 
facts, and the study of the facts in the necessary laws, 
and of those laws in. the determinations of their eternal 
principles, is the only possible method for attaining to 
the Creator's idea, and thereby rising to any science of 
the universe, and attaining what may be termed a ra- 
tional cosmology. It is no presumption so to seek for 
this divine idea ; it need have nothing of irreverence 
to disclose so much as may be attained ; yet will it be 
premature doubtless for a long time to come, to announce 
that such idea has been completely apprehended, and 
may be adequately stated in any human philosophy. 
So much as has been gotten and given in the following 
pages, the careful reader will at length discover, and 
some may perhaps hereby be led to seek further and to 
see clearer. The process is directly on to the vindica- 
tion of a pure Theism, and the exclusion of both Athe- 
ism and Pantheism. 

The introduction to the work may seem to some to 
be too far extended ; but as a preparative for the inves- 
tigations which follow, and as an aid and a guide to the 
reader in the perhaps imaccustomed path he is called to 
travel, it is deemed that the whole will be useful, inde- 
pendently of the intrinsic importance it may have in 



6 PREFACE. 

itself. The first chapter may also by some be thought 
to have too little connection with cosmology to be here 
properly introduced ; and yet a further attention will 
probably find. and appreciate the advantage, before the 
study of the principles and laws of the cosmos, to have 
a carefully attained idea of a Creator as wholly inde- 
pendent of the cosmos he is to make and govern, beside 
the fact that neither Atheism nor Pantheism can ever 
be finally excluded except in the complete idea of an 
absolute Creator as distinct from Universal ITature. 
Still, should any find themselves both uninterested and 
unprofited by the discussion, they can at once pass over 
both the introduction and the first chapter, and com- 
mence what is properly the topic of rational Cosmology 
with the beginning of the second chapter. 

In portions of the intuitive processes here pursued, 
a help might at the outset have been given to some 
minds by the interposition of raore diagrams, and yet 
in the end the fastest and the pleasantest progress will 
be found to have been secured by casting off all depend- 
ence on any such helps, and fixing the mind's eye di- 
rectly upon the subjective ideal, as the pure ground in 
which the insight is to attain determinations of the 
developed principle. In two cases only from the extent 
and complication of the intuition, has it seemed best 
to resort to the interposition of figures ; in other cases 
care has been taken to use precise language, and to give 
descriptive illustrations and analogies, so that to a care- 
ful and clear inspection the process may be followed 



PREFACE. 7 

without much, difficulty or discouragement. Nothing 
can make the journey easy to a mind that refuses to go 
alone and waits to be carried. The truths sought are 
not in the sensible phenomenon, nor at the conclusion 
of a logical process, but must be clear to the rational 
insight in their own necessity, if apprehended at all. 
To the intellect that does not so apprehend them, all 
forms of expression will be empty ; to the mind that 
does so apprehend them, no interposed figures are need- 
ed or would be tolerated. 

Union College, 1858. 



CONTENTS. 

Introduction, 13 

Facts and principles. Facts determined by Principles. 
General progress of philosophical investigation. Theology 
and philosophy possible. 

RATIONAL COSMOLOGY. 

General Method, 55 

CHAPTER L 

THE IDEA OF AN ABSOLUTE CEEATOE. 

1. The Absolute taken as the Infinite, 59 

2. The Absolute taken as the Unconditioned, 63 

3. The Absolute in the Understanding itself, 68 

4. The Absolute as given in the Keason, 76 

In this is found the Deity ; Supernatural, Personal, and 
Absolute, in all His Attributes. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

1. Matter is Force — Antagonist and Diremptive, 90 

2. Creation — The Origination of Matter, 96 

3. Space and Time determined, . . - 103 

4. Matter Perceptible by the Senses, 110 

The Touch. Taste. Smell. Hearing. Vision. 

5. Matter AS Statical AND Dynamical, 11^7 

6. Principles op Motion, 120 

Momentum. Virtual Velocity. 
1. Creation a Nature, 131 



10 CONTENTS. 

8. The Material Creation a Sphere, 134 

9. The Principle of Gravity, 145 

Repulsion and Attraction. 

10. The Principle of Falling Bodies, 155 

Increase of Momentum. Inclined Plane. 

11. The Principles of Magnetism, 162 

Bi-polar. Dip. Attraction and Repulsion. 

12. The Principle op Electricity, 171 

Electric tension. Positive and Negative Conductors. 

13. The Principle op Heat — Diremptive Force, 175 

Vibration. Radiation. Absorption. Latent-heat. 

14. Chemical Principles, 181 

Combination. Equivalents. Affinities. 

15. Crystalline Principles, 184 

Polar forces with varied axes. Geometrical solids. 

16. The Principle of World-Formations, 186 

Chemical Chaos. Rotating Spheres. Single and 
Double-Worlds. Systems. Central Suns. 

17. Principles OF Planetary Motion, ......... 202 

Elliptical, Equal areas in equal times. Square of the 
periodical time as cube of the distance. 

18. Principle of Light, and Luminiferous Bodies, 210 

Ethereal pressure on the Sun's surface, and rotating 
friction. Luminous Atmosphere. Various optical phenom- 
ena. 

19. The Principle of Geological Formations, 218 

Gravity and Cooling. Plutonian Crust and Strata. 
Wernerian Deposits. 

20. The Principle of Cometary Bodies, 220 

From without the system. Some caught and retain- 
ed. Direct and Retrograde. 

21. The Principle of Stellar Distribution, 223 

Hemispheral pressure and diremptive force com- 
pounded. Stellar stratification. Clusters. 

LIFE. 

Demand for Organic Being, 231 

22. The Life an Assimilative Force, 234 

Formative-energy. Growth. Propagation. Sex. Spe- 
cies. Death. 

23. The Principle op Vegetative Life, 240 

Superficial. Ramification. Reduplication. 



CONTENTS. 11 

24- The Principle of Animal Life, 244 

Vegetation turned inward. Muscular Irritability. 
Nervous Sensibility. Self-feeling. 

25. The Principle of Human Life, 252 

The Rational superinduced on the Animal. Self-centre. 
Self-consciousness. Supernatural. The Consummation and 
Crown of Nature. 

CHAPTER IIL 

THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

The Creator not the Subject of Science, 256 

1. The Law of Sphericity, . 258 

Tendency in Solids. The fact in Fluids. Capillary 
Attraction. 

2. The Law of Gravity, 264 

Universal, and no assumption. 

3. Laws of Motion, 269 

4. Laws of Magnetism, 270 

Magnetics and dia-magnetics. Astatic Coercive-force. 
Induction. Terrestrial Magnetism. 

5. The Laws op Electricity, 280 

Static and dynamic conditions. Conductors. Insu- 
lators. Positive and Negative Poles. Molecular Vibration. 
Circularity. Electro-magnetic. 

6. The Laws op Heat, ,,..... 289 

Vibrating Intensity. Diathermanous and Athermanous 
Bodies. Combustion. Latent Heat. Effusion. Vaporiza- 
tion. Animal Heat. 

1. The Laws of Light and Luminiperous Bodies, 295 

Radiating Vibrations. Penumbra. Reflection. Re- 
fraction. Prismatic Spectrum. Chromatic Aberration. 
Interference. Polarization. Sun's spots. 

8. The Law op Chemical Forces, 307 

Chemical Afl&nity. Definite and Indefinite Action. 
Simple Substances. Chemical Equivalents. 

9. The Laws op Crystalline Forces, 314 

Classification. Axial Construction. Cleavage. Con- 
tractions and Expansions. 
10. The Laws op the World-Systems in their Arrangement and 

Movement, 322 

Densities. Interplanetary spaces. Periodic times. Sat- 



12 CONTENTS. 

ellites. Planetary inclinations. Eotations. Uranian sys- 
tem apparently retrograde. Planetoids. Saturn's Rings. 

11. The Law of Comets, 345 

Cometary Origin. Incorporation into the System. 
Elliptical Orbits, and Hyperbolic and Parabolic Courses. 
Inclinations. Change of retrogradation. 

12. The Laws op Geological Formation, 359 

Broken and upturned strata. Azoic rocks. Fossil 
strata. Subcrystalline, Basalt, and Trap rocks. Diluvial 
deposits. Moon's surface, and other planets. 

13. The Laws op Stellar Distribution, 362 

The Milky-way. Stellar Clusters. Nebulae. 

14. The Laws OP LiPE, 3*78 

The Life-force Spiritual. "Works to supply wants, and 
thus to ends. Organisms. Sex. Species. No hybrid pro- 
pagation. 

15. The Law op Physical Energies, 380 

Reduced to Gravity and Heat, and thus to the two per- 
manent and original Forces — Antagonist and Diremptive. 
A conversion but no annihilation of Forces. 



APPENDIX. 

Cosmology accords with Moses, 386 



INTRODUCTION 



Facts are things made — res gestw, facta. They have 
the nature that is given to them by their Maker ; and in 
knowing only the fact, there is no capability for knowing 
why their nature is thus and not otherwise. The Maker 
has so constituted the fact, but in our ignorance of what 
determined Him in the making, we can only find in experi- 
ence that the fact is, and can by no means say why it is. 

Principles are truths prior to all facts, or makings, 
and are themselves unmade. They stand in immutable 
and eternal necessity ; and while they condition all power, 
can themselves be conditioned by no power. Even Omni- 
potence can be wise and righteous, only as determined by 
immutable principles. The insight of the reason may often 
detect, in the fact, the principle which determined the 
nature of the fact, and in the light of such principle we 
can say why the fact is, and not merely that it is. 

The perception of the sense gives facts ; the insight of 
the reason gives principles. The use of facts may lead the 
mind up from particular to general judgments, whereby 
we may classify all the attainments of sense and secure an 
intelligible order of experience ; the use of principles may 



14 INTEODUCTION. 

guide the mind to interpret and explain facts, and raise its 
knowledge from that of a logical experience to philosophi- 
cal science. Not facts alone, no matter how logically 
classified, but facts expounded by principles, constitute 
philosophy. 

To know that a fact is, and to be competent to deduce 
a logical conclusion that because such fact is, other de- 
pendent facts must have been, or must now or in future 
be, is doubtless in various ways of great importance. The 
business and social intercourse of life could not be carried 
on without it. - All such deductions belong to the distinct 
capacity of the logical understanding, and its successful 
cultivation secures good judgment, practical wisdom, and 
successful management in all economical matters. In those 
affairs which come within the considerations of the expedi- 
ent, the prudent, the useful, such clear judgments from 
comprehensive facts must control, and the calculating, 
mercantile, business world could not get on without just 
such intellectual operations. The value to such operations 
is given from a wide experience, embracing many facts, 
and carefully deducing from them what other facts may be 
expected according to the past order of occurrences ; and 
while one man may differ, in degree, very widely from 
others, yet will all men have this capacity in a measure, 
and their agency in practical thinking and connecting facts 
in general judgments will be the same in kind. Yea, a 
man may use more facts and conclude in broader judg- 
ments than an animal, but the man and the brute are in 
this doing the same work, and often the sagacity of the 
brute is surprisingly near to that of the human under- 
standing. 



FACT DETEKMINED BY PEINCIPLE. 15 

Such well-cultivated capacity may be known as good 
sense^ since it avails for the induction of many facts in 
sensible experience ; or it may be termed good judgment^ 
since it is competent to use such facts in comprehensive 
practical conclusions. But this is the most that can truly 
be said of it in its highest degrees of perfection. To call 
its results, in the broadest generalizations, good philosophy^ 
would be wholly to mistake the name and the thing ; since 
this practical experience can use facts only, and its most 
general judgments can attain facts only, while the distinc- 
tive work of philosophy is to go back of the facts, and attain 
and apply the principles which determine why the facts 
are so. 

Man has the capacity for this, which the animal has 
not ; an endowment differing utterly in kind and not mere- 
ly in degree. Man can, therefore, philosophize and inter- 
pret facts, while the animal can only judge according to 
facts. By the insight of reason, which no animal can exer- 
cise, man attains in many facts the principle which was 
before the fact, and which, wholly unmade itself, controlled 
and guided the maker of the fact in all its construction. 
The objects of the most general judgments of the under- 
standing are still only facts, things made ; and if they have 
been intelligently made and are capable of any rational 
explication by their maker, or by others, they must have 
had their unmade principle for each, present in the mind 
of the maker, and that guided in his making, and which he 
has so put into the fact that it has become the nature of 
the fact, and the law of its being and working, and whose 
light alone can guide to any proper philosophical account 
of the fact it has determined. Thus, the steam engine was. 



16 INTEODUCTION. 

not as a fact, until its principle was already in the mind of 
its inventor, and this principle he did not make but found, 
and which having found, he went on to put into the fact he 
fabricated as the law of its peculiar being. The rational 
eye may readily read the law in the fact, when often the 
principle without the fact would not have been discovered, 
but when in any way the principle is attained, whether as 
the product of original genius or learned from his works, 
it is that by which we may give the explication why the 
fact was thus and not of some other nature. The fact not 
only must be known, the priaciple which was before its 
making must also be known, or we can have no rational 
philosophy about it. 

Now, just such application of eternal and immutable 
principle is demanded for the philosophical study of uni- 
versal nature. Observation may give its many particular 
facts, and general conclusions from broad inductions may 
assume to have found facts of universal comprehension, yet 
are these highest facts necessarily, thus, unexplained facts, 
and as without any known princif)le themselves, they must 
be ever wholly incompetent to lead to any philosophical 
interpretation of the included facts which may be classified 
under them. One fact may thus be gained, as that which 
shall make aU facts turn together in it, and thereby we may 
have literally a universe^ still we can thus have it and its 
included universe only as a fact, with no possible rational 
philosophy of any thing. If we know the fact that nature 
is a universe, we have no principle by which we can at all 
interpret why it is so. 

Thus, by wide experiment and profound calculation the 
great fact of universal gravitation in matter has been as- 



FACTS DETERMINED BY PKmCIPLE. IT 

eumed, and the conclusion has been reached that all matter 
gravitates toward all other matter, directly as the quantity 
and inversely as the square of the distance, and we bind 
nature in a universe by it ; but at the most, this is only 
given as a fact, with no principle that has so determined it, 
and it can therefore only give the universe as a fact and 
afford no possible rational explication of it. If we have not 
the unmade principle determining the fact of gravity so to 
be, and with just such ratios, then have we no rational 
science of nature, and what we call a law of nature is still 
a bare fact ; an arbitrary making ; and no philosophy in- 
terpreting the making by its principle. The vast super- 
structure we have reared is all the work of the logical 
understanding, without one ray of the expounding reason 
to shine on it and through it. The whole frame-work has 
been put together, with much of human toil and din, from 
the outside, but no eye has found and fixed its absorbing 
gaze upon that inner force which, in the reality, has been 
silently making living stones grow together to be the 
Lord's holy Temple. Till we attain this eternal principle, 
which as a living law the Maker of the universe has diffused 
all through it from centre to circumference, we may stand 
on the outside and measure and weigh, and overwhelm the 
understanding with the summations of arithmetical reckon- 
ings, but we shall know nothing of that central working 
which makes and holds all in one concrete cosmos of per- 
petual harmony and beauty. 

Universal nature is more than bare fact ; it is something 
made under the determining conditions of unmade princi- 
ple : and this immutable principle, under which its being 
and all its ongoings have been determined, has now its 



18 INTEODIJCTION. 

counterpart in nature as tlie perpetual law of its working, 
and the human reason may find at least some glimpses of it 
and interpret the great plan by it, and may so far know 
what nature is, and why it is thus, and not forever rest in 
the mere knowledge that it is. If, indeed, we cannot ex- 
tend our knowledge beyond the bare facts of experience, 
then must we perforce content ourselves with the mere 
phenomena of nature, but we may not assume that any 
such knowledge is a science of nature, for this cannot be 
attained except as we reach and apply the determining 
principle. A rational cosmology is the only true natural 
philosophy. 

This immutable principle, which determines how the 
fact may be, and, if the fact be at all, how it must be, is 
given in pure thought alone, and can be no appearance in 
the sense. Neither can it be that which connects the quali- 
ties given in the sense into one thing, for that is efiected in 
the substance; nor that which connects the successive 
events into one series, for that must be done through the 
cause ; but the principle lies stiU. further back, and deter- 
mines the natures of substances and causes themselves, and 
stands as the archetype or ideal pattern after which the 
essential natures of things have been created. It is the 
consistent thought, as idea, how the fact may be, and when 
carried in combination through aU facts, it becomes the 
consistent idea of how a universe may be. All the statics 
and dynamics of nature were arranged by it, and thus it 
was before the forces of nature and their balanced action 
became facts, and therefore existed as a subjective ideal in 
the mind of the Maker of the universe only. The principle 
as in being before the fact, and which is to determine the 



FACTS DETEEMINED BY PEINCIPLE. 19 

fact, has not yet been brought out into objective existence, 
but subsists as mental being alone. The principle, thus, is 
not science, but only the ideal of a possible being, which, 
when it shall become fact, may be subjected to science. 

As a general illustration of the being and application 
of all immutable principles, I may adduce the subjective 
thought of an arch, or of a catenary curve, and may so ap- 
ply these in a completed projection as to have the ideal of 
a standing or of a hanging bridge ; or, I may take the sub- 
jective thought of a mechanical power, and follow out the 
composition and resolution of forces till I have projected 
some ideal engine ; and I shall then have the bridge or the 
engine in pure thought, and which will be subjective pat- 
tern of what the bridge or the engine must be, if they be- 
come manifest in objective fact. At the most, here will be 
the science of the possible only. It may even be that 
nature will not admit of these ideals becoming facts. Per- 
haps my projected structure is such, that no actual mate- 
rials would bear their weight in the bridge, or the pressure 
of such a force in the machine, and then my perfectly con- 
sistent thought could never be made an actual thing. The 
theory is self-consistent, but the fact would be self-contra- 
dictory. The science cannot be complete until both the 
principle, as self consistent thought, has been obtained, and 
this principle has also found its actual counterpart, as the 
existing law of the combined materials. 

So, on the other hand, I may have seen a bridge resting 
on such a material arch, or suspended on such chains ; or, 
I may have seen a machine moving with such a mechanical 
power; and then I can, by experimental measure and 
weight, make other constructions like to these, and thus 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

actually put the law of the models into the facts I have 
made to imitate them. But inasmuch as my work has been 
only an imitation, and I have recognized and applied no law 
in the facts which had been determined by an immutable 
principle, I cannot be said in having the fact, to have any 
proper science of it. 

Thus the subjective idea alone is not complete science; 
and the fact as mere fact is not science ; the first is only 
the knowledge of the possible, the last is only the knowl- 
edge of the empirical ; but when the subjective idea as the 
principle determining the fact, and the objective law as put 
by the principle into the fact, are both attained as accord- 
ant counterparts of each other, we have then both an inter- 
preting principle and an interpreted fact, and in this is 
complete science. The whole process in its attainment is a 
rational philosophy. A Rational Cosmology must conform 
to this criterion of all science, and only in so far forth as it 
is kept within the constant circumscription of such criterion 
can it have any claim to a rational philosophy. All that is 
fact — the entire cosmos, as a making after a principle — 
may be so subjected to philosophy by an adequate insight 
of reason. 

But the cosmos, or world of fact, must have its Maker, 
A universe, coming up successively or collectively out of a 
void of all being, would be an impossible conception. It 
would oblige the understanding to think a substance that 
was not substantial, and therem to think an absurdity. 
This Creator of the cosmos must be wholly absolved from 
all the conditions determining the cosmos ; he must origi- 
nate it, and give to it its nature while he is wholly super- 
natural ; and thus, as the author of all fact and not himself 



FACTS DETERMINED BY PRINCIPLE. 21 

a fact, or a making, he cannot be subjected to any science 
by the finite reason. It may be demonstrated that God 
exists, and that he is absolute, in the sense of complete ab- 
solution from all the conditioned necessities in nature ; but 
there can be neither a principle as archetype after which he 
was made, nor a law which works in him as a constituted 
fact, and subjecting him to its nature, and thus the criterion 
of all science is inapplicable to the Deity as subject to phi- 
losophy. When we have demonstrated that God is, and 
that he is absolutely supernatural, we have all that Theology 
demands, and do not need to bring him within the defini- 
tions of philosophy. From the nature of the case philoso- 
phy must recognize theology; neither can exclude the 
other, nor can the one be identified in the other. There is 
a dualism ; the world is not without its Maker, and the 
Maker is not in and of the world ; the theology rests on 
the proof that God is, the philosophy rests in the interpret- 
ing how the world is ; and all philosophy without theology 
is incomprehensible, and all theology without philosophy is 
a credulous superstition. All blending and confounding of 
the two will be destructive of both. K the universe be 
absorbed in the Deity, it is Pantheism ; if the Deity be lost 
in the universe, it is Pancosmism. But the unphilosophical 
Pantheism will be Atheism, and the atheistic Pancosmism 
will annihilate all philosophy in absurdity. 

The whole design includes the attainment of a clear 
conception of what is essential m a Being that must be the 
Maker of the universe ; and then, a clear conception also 
of the immutable principles that must determine the laws, 
and by which we may expound the nature of the universe. 
The Maker must be an absolute personal God, capable of 



22 INTEODUCTION". 

originating material worlds from himself, without himself 
being subjected to any of the conditions of matter. But 
we may rest in the demonstration that such a supernatural 
Being is, without attempting the solecism of attaining a 
principle that is philosophically to interpret the absolute 
principium^ and determine why he is. In reference to the 
theology, there may be complete satisfaction attained in 
the use of a true rational Psychology; but the new and 
severe task demanded is in reference to the philosophy. 
There is the necessity for the instauration of a true science 
of the universe — ^a eational cosmology. 

It will assist much in setting clearly before the mind the 
urgent necessity for such a work, if we rapidly look over 
the track of past philosophical inyestigation, and notice the 
prominent attitudes in which philosophy has stood, and the 
positions now occupied by distinguished schools or the 
representative men who speak authoritatively for them. 

In the earliest ages of Grecian history we find the dawn 
of all philosophical thinking, so far as any light has come 
down to our day. This thinking consisted in the construc- 
tion of theories, more or less crude, concerning the origin 
of material nature and the arrangement of the world. The 
various early cosmogonies, though partially and obscurely 
transmitted to us, are sufficient to determine what was the 
scope and bearing of their philosophical speculations. 

The germ of any intelligible theory is first found in the 
recognition of some of the elemental forces in nature, and 
assuming that their action was sufficient to account for the 
formation of the universe. The natures and powers of 
these elements were taken as already in being, and each 
philosopher assumed and applied them in speculation, as he 



PEOGEESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTESTIGATION. 23 

deemed them to be the most favorable in accountmg for 
the varied phenomena. The Ionic class of philosophers 
were among the earliest, and their philosophizing was main- 
ly in tlie above method. Thales made the element of 
water to be the chief ingredient in the composition of 
material nature, and taught that the forces here acting had 
been the primitive agents in the construction of the uni- 
verse. Anaximenes, in a similar way of applying the 
elemental forces, held that the air had given the first 
formative processes in the arrangements of nature; and 
Anaximander had some vague conception of higher ele- 
mental powers not in any distinct form of manifestation, 
but existing as a chaos of rudimental being, out of which 
an orderly arrangement ultimately emerged. These re- 
cognized, each in his way, the presence of efficient agen- 
cies already in existence, but seem not to have arisen to 
any speculative conclusions concerning the origin of any 
of these elemental forces that they assumed as active in the 
formation of worlds. There was some first cause, but 
they did not go beyond already existing elementary forces 
to find it. 

Pythagoras is one of the most conspicuous of the early 
philosophers, and enough is transmitted to us to prove that 
his clearness and force of philosophic thought was quite be- 
yond the age in which he flourished. He seems to have 
apprehended the distinct faculty of the human mind to at- 
tain to truths beyond the sensuous perceptions, and to reach 
necessary and immutable principles. The axioms which de- 
termine in the combinations of numbers, and the regulative 
proportions in mathematical formulae, and the harmony ot 
tones in music had been intuitively apprehended by him, 



24: INTEODUCTION. 

and lie had hence learned to guide his philosophical specu- 
lations by those permanent truths that must condition and 
correct all the fleeting perceptions of the sense, and by 
which must be interpreted and explained all the seeming 
anomalies and contradictions in the phenomenal world. He 
had learned to apply principles to facts, and thus had found 
the right method for a true philosophy. The effort to clothe 
his systematic thought in mathematical phraseology and to 
represent the physical forces of nature under the forms and 
ratios of number, has left very much that remains to us of 
his philosophy, from the representations of those who fol- 
lowed him, quite ambiguous and obscure; but it is still 
easy to gain a correct and profound meaning from many of 
these representations. Others, that are so enigmatical that 
little can be made from them, were probably clear in his 
own apprehension, and need now only the necessary clue to 
lead us through the obscurities to a consistent meaning. 

The origin of the chaotic elements of the universe was 
not yet approached in their philosophizrog, nor had there 
been any distinct conception of some independent author 
by whom a proper creation, a beginning of things, could be 
made. Parmenides argued that non-being was incon- 
ceivable, and that as something could not come from 
nothing, therefore creation, in the sense of absolute origi- 
nation, was impossible. Empedocles also taught, that the 
elementary matter of the universe, in the hyle^ or primary 
rudimental substance, was itself uncreated and iudestructi- 
ble. Heraclitus taught that this elementary matter was in 
constant flux, and that such perpetual flow of the compo- 
nent elements kept nature in a continual succession of be- 
coming and departing phenomena ; but he recognized 



PROGEESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 25 

nothing that could originate and orderly control and guide 
these flowing movements. He held all things to be of fire, 
and yet not in the same way that the Ionic philosophers 
had applied the forces of the natural elements, but rather 
because fire is of so penetrating a nature, and decomposing 
other substances, and thus keei^ing nature perpetually fluid 
and agitated. Later, among the Sophists, Protagoras took 
this constant arising and departing, as the necessary result 
from our mode of knowing, and in which all things must 
be fleeting and transient as our sensations present them. 
Man was made the measure of all things, and to every 
man, his own consciousness in his perceptions must be to 
him the truth. What his senses gave, that, to him, the 
things themselves were, and every man must follow his own 
measure. 

The old atomic philosophy, again, reduced all of nature 
to an original bemg in indivisible and indestructible atoms, 
and brought those atoms together in bodies, either by a 
falling together, or by an inner deflecting force, which 
turned them out of their proper course, in their descent, 
and thus collected them in masses. There was no occasion 
for a. creating and superintending Deity, for all things were 
provided in the original atoms. The whole philosophy was 
entirely atheistic. 

Anaxagoras seems first to have found and traced the in- 
dices of some intelligent adaptations to ends in nature, and 
that such adaptations were the evidence of design ; and he 
accordingly taught that there was a Mind concerned in the 
formation of the worlds from their chaotic state. But this 
vouc, or intelligence, was apprehended rather as subjectively 
in the world itself, and a kind of inworking power that 



26 INTRODrCTION. 

ordered and arranged its changes as an indwelling law, than 
any independent and personal agent. With him, there was 
no rising above nature and apprehending a supernatural and 
rational Creator and Governor, but merely an attainment 
of the facts of design, and workings of an inward intelli- 
gence, without referring them to any thing beyond nature 
itself. The world was, and had its own intelligent activity 
within itself, and thus the universe was mind as well as 
matter. 

Plato was the great master philosopher of the age. 
He not only recognized clearly the vovs^ or intelligence, 
manifested in the adaptations of nature, as they had been 
found and taught by Anaxagoras, but he referred this intel- 
ligent adaptation to ends, directly to a supreme Deity. He 
apprehended also, more clearly and comprehensively than 
Pythagoras, those necessary and immutable principles, 
which, antecedently to all facts, regulate and determine in 
the production of facts, and necessitate the conditions in 
the ongoings of nature. He is emphatically the rational 
thinker of humanity, and his conception of philosophy that 
which must correct all subsequent erroneous methods of 
speculation. Only in returning to his method, can modern 
wanderers in new paths be turned about again into the old 
and safe highway. With Plato, the universe stands out as 
one consistent whole in itself, and this universe the product 
of an independent and personal Creator. The Absolute 
Good had, from eternity, the Ideas, or Archetypes, in him- 
self, and he produced and fashioned the universe from him- 
self accordingly. Xenophanes had, before this, generalized 
the many into the one, and made all to stand as parts of 
the whole, and had called this whole, God. He was in 



PEOGRESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 27 

truth, the first philosophical Pantheist. But Plato's whole 
was the whole of nature only — the created universe — 
having the Deity utterly above and independent of itself. 
Sometimes, it is true, that the insoluble difficulty of account- 
ing for evil under the absolute dominion of the Good, leads 
Plato to reason as if matter was the source of all evil, and 
that this had an existence, as it were, independent of God, 
and in this way freeing God from connection with evil 
which, in the necessity of the case, could not be excluded. 
But this is not the doctrine systematically held and taught 
by Plato. In the Timgeus, the matured and labored philos- 
ophy of Plato is given ; and here we have one supreme Ab- 
solute Mind, producing the Universe from himself and 
making it one living whole by infusing all through it the in- 
forming Idea as the soul of the world. God is, and then 
the world is made by him, and the intelligent Idea or law 
is j)ut into it, and thus nature moves on, as a living thing, 
to fulfil its grand design. 

The Platonic philosophy has its first mover ^ in the ac- 
ceptation of an uncaused originator. Movement is not only 
locomotion, or progress in space, but it includes all changes. 
Motion in space ; growth and decrease ; arising and vanish- 
ing ; beginning and annihilation ; the inner activity of 
thought and all spiritual agency ; all involve the concep- 
tion of movement ; change ; and necessarily imply a con- 
stant or permanent, from which all change must spring 
That which is mutable, and thus perishable, has been gene- 
rated from that which is unchangeable and eternal. The 
mutable is the subject of sensuous knowledge and comes 
within experience ; the constant and eternal can be cog 
nized only in the rational intellect. An immutable and 



28 ^ INTRODUCTION. 

eternal God, having in himself the patterns, or perfect ideas 
of all things, generated the Universe from himself; vital- 
ized or ensouled it, by putting the eternal Ideas into it ; 
thus making nature to possess a living force and an orderly- 
intelligent activity. The Universe is itself, thus, a true 
good, as the free product of the absolute Good ; and having 
efficiency, activity, orderly intelligent progress, it is spoken 
of by Plato as if it were itself a hving thing, " a Messed 



This Platonic philosophy completely avoids both Athe- 
ism and Pantheism, and is thoroughly Theistic. The 
pagan polytheism which it recognizes is in no sense contra- 
dictory to pure monotheism. The Absolute Spirit is ever 
held as supreme, independent, and eternal. He first makes 
soul, as better and thus older than body ; and from this soul 
of the universe, as originated direct from the Absolute 
Good, there is successively generated all other spirits, and 
with Plato, all spiritual being is a god. The Absolute 
Good is, however, with him the God of all gods. The 
philosophy falters in nothing that is necessary to a true per- 
sonal Deity ; a God utterly supernatural, and wholly dis- 
tmct from and independent of the universe which he 
makes and governs. The theology is conceived and pre- 
served pure and unadulterated from any material condition- 
ing or physical necessitating. But while his philosophy of 
the material Universe proceeds always in the true method 
of accounting for fact by principle, yet is there not unfre- 
quently a very imperfect apprehension of principle, and 
thus often a wide misapplication of it. Physical facts were 
but partially attained and confusedly apprehended, and the 
age of humanity was not then sufficiently advanced to be 



PEOGRESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 29 

able to read clearly the law in the fact, because of this im- 
perfect comprehension of the fact. The insight of reason 
was, with Plato, superlatively penetrating, but the ground 
in which the eternal principles must reveal themselves was 
not plain and full before him. The great fact of a creation 
was clear, and he saw in it the certainty of a free and in- 
dependent Creator ; and the great truth, that this creation 
must conform to the immutable Ideas, or principles of abso- 
lute reason, was clear, but all these principles could not be 
exactly attained, because the laws in the phenomenal facts 
which disclose them had not been minutely observed. Only 
reason can see the prmciple in the fact, but to reason, the 
apprehended fact is often the only ground in which the 
Eternal Idea will present itself. The creating genius, 
which may originate its own subjective conceptions, in 
which it shall beforehand see all objective laws that shall 
exist, would be more than human. 

The great merit of Plato, therefore, is not the fulness 
and exactness of a rehgious system — for in many doctrines 
there is the deficiency and error which was to have been 
anticipated in a pagan — nor the thoroughness and faultless- 
ness of his system of natural science — for his ignorance of 
many facts made hun falter in the attainment and applica- 
tion of many principles — but the prompt introduction and 
steadfast maintenance of the true method of all j)hilosophiz- 
ing relatively to the origin of the universe. His concep- 
tion of a true rational cosmology is perfect. He has both 
a theology and a philosophy, and he puts and keeps both in 
their proper places. He never degrades the supreme Good 
to be the mere animus mundi^ nor does he exalt nature to 
the throne of the Deity. His " soul of the world" wholly 



30 mTKODFCTIOK. 

dispenses with the necessity of a Deus ex machina^ and 
gives to the Universe perpetual efficiency and movement ; 
but this infused inteUigence and power is still the creature 
of God, and working orderly and rationally. Plato never 
contents himself with bare facts, but the fact is as nothing 
to him till he can bring it under the determination of a 
priuciple. He recognizes in the supreme Good, an agency 
that can absolutely begin ; an independent personality that 
can originate from himself, without the supposition of an 
already previously constituted nature causing him to do 
this. His God is supernatural ; Spirit in liberty ; Absolute 
personality ; and the created Universe is the free rational 
product of this God; intelHgible and wholly explicable 
from the eternal Ideas ; a consistent cosmos ; fact pervaded 
by principle. 

Since the age of Plato, philosophy has been little 
Platonic. The ISTew Academy had nothing of his spirit. 
The New-Platonism of the Alexandrian school was, also, 
altogether a corruption. The blending of Orientalism 
made it a perversion and not a perpetuation of Platonism. 
The intellectual vision, by which the human soul appre- 
hended the eternal Ideas, and came to the recognition of 
the supreme Good, was turned to an absorbing silent medi- 
tation, in which it was sought to identify the contemplating 
philosopher with the contemplated Deity, and give the 
human soul to be swallowed up m the divine. 

The Aristotelian philosophy at once, after Plato, 
struck determinately into quite another path. The too 
much extended and thereby confused application of the 
Idea, by Plato, Jiad made the Aristotelian philosophizing 
necessary. In the Idea Plato had included not only the 



PKOGKESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 31 

archetypes whicli were eternally in the Divine Reason, and 
the primitive forces which are the principles or germs from 
which universal nature is developed, but also all general 
conceptions fr'om which, by virtue of their participation 
therein, all the particulars of the class have their being, and 
these ideas in this broad sense were also held by him to be 
true and valid realities ; it thus became a demand of the 
reason that this broad assumption of real being should be 
critically examined. Originally, in its founder, the Aris- 
totelian philosophy used the insight of reason, and recog- 
nized the Eternal principles necessary for all facts, as really 
as the Platonic. All physics was made to strike its root 
and find its explication only in metaphysics. The prima 
philosophia was essential to all philosophy. But the study 
was intently and intentionally turned to follow out nature 
on the phenomenal side, and not to hold philosophy per- 
petually under the control of eternal principles. Generalized 
facts were themselves put as principles, and a classification 
of phenomena under general facts came to be recognized as 
philosophy. Genera and species, put as categories under 
which might be classified all particulars, took the place of 
the eternal ideas, and instead of recognizing any being 
above sense, the veritable and immutable ideas of Plato 
were said to be only " things of sense immortalized." At 
length, among his later followers, empty words, names in- 
stead of things, absorbed the whole attention; and the 
purely logical understanding became the entire faculty for 
philosophizing, and this wholly exhausted itself in running 
through all the processes of syllogistic reasoning. Reason, as 
" the vision and the faculty divine," distinct from the faculty 
connecting in logical judgments, was so completely disused 



32 INTEODUCTION. 

and overlooked, that it ceased to be recognized as a dis- 
tinct fact in psychology. The law of the syllogism admit- 
ted no distribution in the conclusion which had not already 
been gathered in the major proposition, and the whole 
labor only analyzed what they had, but added nothing new. 
Experience attained all the facts ; abstraction and generali- 
zation gave the logical notions ; and the syllogistic process 
analyzed and distributed in* specific conclusions. A clearer 
knowledge of what they already had was secured, but 
nothing new was added, and nothing philosophically ex- 
pounded in its principle. 

On emerging from the long and unsatisfactory strife of 
the scholastic logic, the human thought turned mainly into 
two distinct channels. Caetesiai^sm, having some alliance 
with Platonism, ran out its course the earliest. This phi- 
losophy awakes in doubt, and casting around for what may 
resolve aU doubt into clear certainty, and assummg that 
clearness is the test of truth, it finds an undoubted fact of 
thinking clearly in the consciousness. Here is the starting 
point for all philosophy, and hence the famous dictum of 
Des Cartes — Cogito^ ergo sum. This is as much as saying 
— there is a thinking, and by thinking myself is found. 
Extension is also as clearly given in the consciousness as 
thought, and these two, thought and extension, are the 
essence of all being. The first is distinctive of spiritual 
being, and the last of material ; and these two are so whoUy 
unlike and disparate, that no inter commimion can subsist 
between them. All interchange of activity between mind 
and matter, must be efiected by the interposition of the 
Deity ; and hence the general doctrine of " divine assist- 
ance," for all communication of the material mth the spir- 



PEOGKESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 33 

itual. The Deity Avas an a priori assumption, from the 
prominence and clearness of the idea, which in itself in- 
volved a necessity. Extension, with its two modes of rest 
and motion, admitted of being broken into parts, and hence 
the atoms ; hence, also, the vortices mduced in the univer- 
sal breaking up, the collection of the differently ground up 
atoms into their appropriate spheres, and thereby the gen- 
eral arrangement of the universe. 

Geulincx added the perpetual interposition of the 
Deity, in all occasions when the spirit acted upon matter, 
or was affected by matter, and thus introduced the doe- 
trine of " Occasional Causes ; " and Malebranche reconciled 
the spiritual perception of material objects, by the exist- 
ence of all things in the Deity; and thus, through this 
divine medium, matter could be perceived by spirit, and 
hence his doctrine that "we see all things in God." Spi- 
noza ultimately finished this order of thought, by bringing 
the duality of thought and extension into complete unity, 
and identified both in a higher Infinite substance. This 
Infinite substance is made the ground of all being ; and all 
the various manifestations of both thought and extension, 
spirit and matter, are but the varied attributes of the one 
Infinite substance. 

Leibnitz, it is true, changed the dead atoms of Des 
Cartes into reflecting or envisaging monads, and pre-ar- 
ranged them so as to give their representations harmo- 
niously one with another, and made this " pre-established 
harmony " to fulfil the purposes of the " divine assistance " 
and the " occasional causes " before given ; but the Carte- 
sian philosophy is truly consummated in Spinozism. No 

movement of thought can pass beyond the Infinite sub- 
3 



34 INTEODTJCTION. 

stance ; and all theology, and all pMlosophy, have the same 
source, for the Infinite substance is the only God, and the 
philosophy of the universe is but the recognition of God's 
manifested attributes. The Infinite substance, when sub- 
jected to reflection, is truly only a svhstratum for the phe- 
nomena of thought and extension, and is itself vrholly dead 
and inert, except that it admits of these attributes to id- 
here in it. As a theology, it could not satisfy ; for this 
dead, inert, impersonal substance, was nothing that could 
be loved or worshipped. It solely sustained the spiritual 
and material worlds, but it could neither create nor govern 
them. As a philosophy, it could just as httle satisfy ; since, 
although it furnished a unity for the disparate conceptions 
of thought and extension, yet was it a mere logical unity, 
and, though placed at the centre, could exert no efficiency 
and possess no intelligent law or rational principle. The 
philosophic thought, dwelling upon this Infinite substance, 
could do nothing with it, nor make any thing out of it. It 
revealed nothing, it interpreted nothing. 

Cartesianism began with the Platonic views of a "first 
mover," and the competency to attain and apply a priori 
principles ; and the philosophy was carried onwards by at- 
tempting to apply the iasight of reason, and follow the 
determiQations of eternal ideas. But this was made absurd 
and impossible, since matter was essentially mere exten- 
-sion, passive, inert, and lawless ; and even all assumed spir- 
itual divine action upon it was in violation of its fundamen- 
tal doctrine — the essential incommunicabUity of all spirit 
with matter. At last, both spirit and matter were put in 
a substance which merely held them in identity, but could 
neither use nor control them. God and the universe were 



PEOGRESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INYESTIGATION. 35 

one ; but the pantheistic unity was utterly dry and dead at 
the heart, for it had no personality there with which piety 
could commune, and uo principle there with which philoso- 
phy could work. 

The other channel of thought was the Baconian Induc- 
tive Logic. This has rmi a much longer course, and turn- 
ed in more varied directions, and yet it has mostly kept 
itself at a further remove from the great Platonic requi- 
sition, that all philosophy must maintain an interpreting 
immutable principle at the centre. 

All the old scholastic syllogisms were built upon the 
analytical dictum, that what is true of the whole must be 
true of all the parts. This could lead to no extension of 
knowledge, for it obliged that the truth for the whole 
should be attained before it went to the work of distribu- 
ting to the parts. The Inductive Logic exactly reverses 
the dictum, and builds upon the judgment, that what is 
true of aU the parts is true of the whole. This allows 
scope for extending knowledge, for it , encourages and 
obliges to the attainment of the truth for aU the parts be- 
fore concluding upon the truth for the whole. We might 
anticipate that such an impulse would not rest in barren 
results. All means to attain the truth of the parts will be 
desirable, and at once put in requisition. If, now, we may 
here rest upon the Platonic method, and from the insight 
of reason can affirm that nature, as itself a fact, has been 
made after the determinations of eternal principles, then 
we know that such determining principles must run their 
lines all through nature, and we shall find no fact in nature 
that is not bound up by laws with its fellows. Instead, 
then, of trying to attain all the facts which go to make up 



36 INTKODrCTION. 

the whole Iby a particular experiment for each, we may be 
safely content with an experience that reaches so far as 
fairly to convince that nature's law has therein been found, 
and then we may cease from all further experiment, and 
logically conclude upon the truth for the whole. "We have 
found nature's law, and we know that this law must hold 
all the parts, and the short turn of logic answers for all the 
long labor of a universal experience. 

So Bacon, and long before Bacon, so Aristotle philoso- 
phized ; and hence the organon of the latter, and the no- 
vum organon of the former. But if the Platonic doctrine 
is all assumption, and the reason's insight of principle and 
law in nature is a delusion, then must our actual expe- 
rience run through every part before we may at all con- 
clude upon the truth for the whole. The inductive logic 
is open to skepticism on aU sides, so soon as we deny that 
reason is capable to attain and put eternal principles at its 
foundation. Without this, we have no right to assign any 
laws to nature, and can only say, so far forth as experience 
has gone, so the facts are ; but we have nothing to sustain 
our footsteps beyond experience. And if we should deduce 
a general judgment from an induction of many particulars, 
as if the actual experiment had extended to aU, such an as- 
sumed general judgment could only include the bare fact, 
and could give no principle that could interpret it, and we 
could only use it to classify particular facts under it, but 
not in any way philosophically to explain them. 

Thus, without the insight of reason, the inductive logic 
begins and prosecutes its work in credulity, and when it 
deduces its general fact, it can never evince its validity, 
and the assumption can only be of a dry, hard, insoluble 



PROGKESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 37 

fact, which can never find its principles to explain why it 
must have been thus and not otherwise. We may make 
one fact dependent upon another, and thus upward through 
an indefinite series, but we can reach to no principle that 
supports and expounds the whole chain. 

A true inductive process must both begin in the appli- 
cation of immutable principle for the determination of na- 
ture, and its most general facts must themselves be inter- 
preted by principles which determine them, and then it 
becomes a safe guide and auxiliary to philosophy; but 
when used by such as discard the insight of reason, and 
deny the power of the human mind to go beyond the fact, 
it becomes not merely useless to philosophy, but is itself 
utterly unphilosophical. At the best, it cannot itself be a 
philosophy, but only an instrument in the interest of phi- 
losophy; but as now mostly used, in the rejection of all a 
priori principle, it is wholly illogical and illegitimate. In 
its own proper field of attaining facts in the service of phi- 
losophy, and thus for enlarging the field of discovery, the 
inductive logic has done much, and become the wonder and 
boast of the age, which, as practically utilitarian, has been 
fashioned and almost wholly actuated by it. Let it have 
its due, but let it not usurp honors which are not its due. 
Let it be employed to the utmost in its proper field, but 
let it not come out of its place, arrogantly to dictate in 
matters about which it can know nothing. It must per- 
petually walk in the borrowed light of a higher faculty, 
or it becomes inevitably both unphilosophical and athe- 
istic. 

Take the inductive logic alone, and cut off all commu- 
nication of immutable principles in the insight of the reason. 



38 INTEODUCTION. 

and proudly as she may seem to walk over tlie field of phe- 
nomenal nature, yet can she vhidicate her possession logi- 
cally to no fact she assumes beyond actual experiment, and 
can never expound a single fact she gathers, nor ever cast 
a glance within the region of the supernatural and eternal. 
Make this the highest operation of the human mind, and 
absolutely shut out of human possession all knowledge that 
it cannot attain and vindicate, and a personal, absolute 
Deity can then be neither proved nor conceived, and you 
thus first exclude, what must then be, the gross delusions 
and credulities of theology. All facts are then also mere 
facts, with no eternally conditioning principles to deter- 
mine them, and you thus exclude, what must then be, the 
illusory and bewilderuig hghts of metaphysic. The theo- 
logic age, old in its venerable but mischievous superstitions, 
passes utterly away from the generations of humanity ; and 
next, the metaphysic age passes, with its lofty and pro- 
found, but empty speculations, neither of them again ever 
to return. All religion and all jDhilosophy have passed be- 
neath the horizon, and the complete and final positivism of 
Auguste Comte culminates in the heavens. In this the 
full mission of the inductive logic is accomplished. She 
began by denying to the human mind any higher light than 
exj^erience; she carried out her varied experiments, and 
brought together numerous kindred facts, and deduced 
more general facts from these conspfring individuals ; she 
arranges all carefully according to variety and class, species 
and genus, and with her light shining fairly but exclusively 
upon these arranged facts of phenomenal nature, she finds 
the bold man who does not shrink from her logic, and who 
well knows that no modern speculative school can rebuke 



PEOGEESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 39 

him, and he cries aloud to the nations of the earth — ^All 
theology and all philosophy beyond this is a fable. 

Positivism is the affirmative side of Hume's skepticism, 
and rests firmly and impregnably on the basis of the ex- 
clusively sensational psychology. All the elements of pos- 
sible human knowledge are affirmed to be given in the 
senses. The understanding can reflect upon these, and 
abstract, compare, and combine, and thus attain new analyt- 
ical judgments out of them, but it can add nothing more, 
and attain nothing other than is given in them. What is 
made, what comes as event, we can know ;, but the princir 
pie determining the making, and the order of the comings 
we cannot know ; all expectation that nature will go on in 
future, in the order of sequence as in the past, rests solely 
on the experience having become accustomed to it. 
Science can affirm nothing about it ; for that there are any 
principles beyond the facts, which have put their determin- 
ing laws within the facts, is beyond all human ken not only, 
but all human conception. The principle must itself have 
been once made, and even its very maker must have had a 
constitutional nature that might have been directly re- 
versed. It is philosophical to doubt, in every case that 
cannot become a fact for the senses. Thus- Hume ; and 
Comte is exactly the counterpart. We can positively 
affirm so far as experiment testifies ; we can as positively 
deny all conclusiveness to any affirmation not capable of 
the testimony of experiment; facts, and facts only, are 
positive. And now, these conclusions are all logically in- 
evitable from the premises. The psychology cannot be 
retained, and the immutable principles of theology and 
philosophy be admitted. If the insight of reason is not 



40 INTRODFCTION. 

sometMng other and higher than any judgments of the 
logical understanding, whether deductive or inductive, and 
if the human mind cannot vindicate its right to the posses- 
sion and appUcation of these immutable principles, then 
Hume has the right to doubt, and Comte the right posi- 
tively to deny, that man can have any stable theology or 
philosophy. 

An attempt to escape from this rigid exclusion of all 
stable theology and philosophy, is vainly made by that 
which calls itself The Philosopht of Commois: Seintse. 
This rests on the fact it finds, that the human mind is 
forced to assent to what are called "first truths," or 
"primitive beliefs," and assumes that in these there is a 
sufficient basis for theology and philosophy. Its strong 
ground is, that from the constitution of the human mind it 
cannot expel the convictions occasioned by these "first 
truths." The skeptic and the assumed infidel are forced 
to the same con\dction, and can never belie this coercion 
of common sense, and can pretend to be free from it only 
in their speculations. They must rest on some primitive 
conviction, or all affirmation of doubting would itself be 
absurd. Neither skepticism nor positivism could affirm 
themselves, except by admitting the conclusiveness of 
common sense. 

The argumentum ad hommem^ so pushed, may seem 
to silence the gainsaying skeptic, and confirm the credu- 
lous disciple, but it is wholly sophistical and delusive. 
Common sense begins in the affirmation of the same dic- 
tum with Hume's Skepticism and Comte's Positivism, viz. : 
that the human mind can never carry its knowledge be- 
yond facts. But it seeks to escape the rigid logic of the 



PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INYESTIGATION. 41 

unbeliever by affirming that it finds this deeper fact in 
humanity, that all men must yield assent to the force of 
their " primitive beliefs." True to its fundamental dictum, 
nothing hut facts; it makes this conviction of common 
sense to be mere fact, unavoidable, but yet wholly inex- 
pHcable. The human mind is so made. 

The old Grecian kolvoX hvoiai — the common rational 
intelligence / the endowment which distinguishes the man 
from the brute — is held to be a mere fact, and the affirma- 
tions of reason to be as arbitrary a making as the constitu- 
tion of organic sensation, and thus there is felt no scruple 
in translating this term which expresses man's highest 
prerogative, by the utterly inadequate expression, common 
sense. The sum is this — the human mind is so made, that 
there comes out the universal fact, of a necessary assent 
to the "primitive beliefs." AU is an arbitrary making; 
unintelligible, insoluble fact ; and nothing unmade can be 
reached that may give any explanation. 

And now, what does aU this, but wrap the same strong 
chain of Positivism one fold more around our human 
knowledge, and make its bondage to sensationalism, and 
its exclusion of aU theology and philosophy the more hope- 
less ? Common sense is a thing made ; and its primitive 
behefs are things made; aU unmade principle is beyond 
knowledge or conception; and even the Deity can come 
only within this common sense conception, and himself, and 
his principles of working and governing, and the whole su- 
pernatural field of immortality, must faU back within the 
sphere of constitutional existence, for aU truth absolved 
from the conditions of a nature of things is whoUy incon- 
ceivable. The Creator who makes worlds, and the mill 



42 INTEODIJCTION. 

wMch grinds corn, have alike their constitutional adapta- 
tions to their work, and our conceptions of them can differ 
nothiug in kind, only the one has a constitutional nature 
more magnificent than the other! When the supplied 
common sense is itself only fact, and its highest attainments 
are but facts, then surely common sense should admit that 
its theology and philosophy can deal with nothing beyond 
facts. 

The deficiencies of sensationalism, and their logical 
consequence in skepticism, gave rise to the Critical 
Philosophy. In many respects, this is one of the most 
remarkable, and in some respects, the most productive 
direction in which the stream of human speculation has 
been turned. Kant saw the inevitable skeptical issues of 
Empiricism, and hence his CritiJc of Pure Meason^ to 
escape therefrom. His method is wholly Aristotelian, 
though he gathers his facts in another field, and not at all 
Platonic, although using some of Plato's terms. He does 
not start from immutable principles, in the eternal Ideas, 
and determine therefrom how all judgments in an under- 
standing must be, but he takes our human faculty of judg- 
ment as already made, and by a transcendental analysis of it 
determines how we must know. It is a critik of pure 
reason^ in the sense of taking the facts of human psychol- 
ogy antecedently to their development in phenomena, but 
not antecedently to their being in subjective faculty; 
before they come out in our consciousness, but not before 
they have been constituted. The whole philosophy is a 
priori, or transcendental, not as attaining principles prior 
to, or transcending facts, but only as attaining facts that 
exist prior to, or transcending, our conscious experience. 



PEOGRESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 43 

The Platonic reason attained and used the eternal, unmade 
principles, or Ideas; the Kantian reason attains and uses 
the regulative forms in an already made human under- 
standing. This truly Aristotelian method prevails in all 
the successors of Kant, in carrying forward the critical 
philosophy ; and the pure thinking is no insight of reason 
that gets in the facts their determining principles, but 
solely an analytical process that finds facts already in the 
human mind before they have worked themselves out on 
the field of consciousness. The whole labor, though tran- 
scending the point of conscious experience, is still that of 
the logical understanding only. 

Kant assumed that the organic content, given as envis- 
aged by the sense, was real ; but that the human mind 
possessed its own forms, or regulative conceptions, and 
these gave their law to the operation of the mind in know- 
ing this content in sensation. To us^ so made, our cogni- 
tion of objects must therefore conform to these inherent 
regulative conceptions, or categories, in our human under- 
standing. However the things may be in themselves, or 
however other minds may know them, our human knowl- 
edge must be after these forms already existing as facts 
within us. The matter of our cognitions had, thus, an 
objective reality, but the forms^ in which our understand- 
ings clothed the objects, had only subjective reality. Kant 
could thus answer Hume, — we connect the sequences of 
events in nature in the conviction of a fixed series of cause 
and efiect, not because our experience has become ac- 
customed to such an order, but because such is the law of 
connecting in judgments by the original constitution of the 
human mind. But this has still subjective certainty only. 



44 INTEODUCTION. 

Our minds must know through the connections of cause 
and effect, and the other categories given constitutionally 
within them; perhaps other minds may know the same 
things in quite other connections. The universe, and the 
Maker of the universe, can be cognized only through these 
regulative conceptions, and as we can have no phenomenal 
content in sensation of the Deity, so we cannot demonstrate 
his existence, but also just as little can we carry our de- 
monstration against his existence. The proof for any su- 
persensible existence is from the practical and not from 
the speculative reason. The fact that we are thus consti- 
tuted, having by the Critik been transcendentally found, 
enables us to say a priori how far the human mind can 
know. 

Fichte, pursuing the transcendental critik still further, 
showed that there was no more ground for holding the 
organic content, or matter, for our cognitions, to be objec- 
tively real, than for holding the forms to be so, under 
which our understandings brought it. Both are subjec- 
tive, and the matter and the form are alike supphed for 
the consciousness by the working of the intellectual self, or 
the ego. The self, as subject, makes itself object to itself. 
The mind can envisage nothing that it does not itself set 
before it. 

Transcending consciousness further than Fichte, and 
going deeper into the mysteries of human cognition, 
Schelling, by an "Intellectual Intuition," detected the 
absolute ego standing in the mid-point of indifference to 
either subject or object, and as a bi-polar agency, like 
magnetism, simultaneously working each way, and on the 
one side giving the object, and on the other the subject. 



PEOGEESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 45 

He identified both the subject and object in this central 
ego, which, back of consciousness, works out its two poles 
into consciousness, and there they appear as separately 
Object known, and Subject knowing. 

But even beyond this analysis, there was still an insoluble 
element lying in this absolute ego. As a source for both of 
Fichte's subjective and objective egos, Schelling had placed 
in the mid-point of indifference another ego, and which, as 
the absolute ego, gave both the others to the consciousness 
with one undivided act. This bi-polar agency, in the abso- 
lute ego, Schelling had assumed without any examination 
or explanation, and with such a thought-agency assumed, 
he could work out the process of its development into 
universal nature, humanity, and completed Deity, with 
great precision and exactness. 

Hegel took this unsolved agency of Schellmg, and car- 
ried the transcendental analysis to a still deeper abstrac- 
tion, for the starting-point of another philosophical devel- 
opment. In his Phenomenology, he sets out from the 
common conviction that there is a dualism of both subject 
and object in human cognition, and thence unweaving the 
dialectical web in which both had been gathered, he found, 
as the ultimate remnant, a simple thought-progress — a 
movement according to the law of thinking ; a pure ac- 
tivity with no ground — and from this abstract thought- 
process, with no substantial ego, Hegel begins his philoso- 
phy, and evolves the objective universe, the subjective 
mind, and finally the universal mind, educated to self-con- 
sciousness, and also to the knowledge that the thought- 
process is the only reality. 

The phenomenology is solely preparatory to the phi- 



46 INTEODUCTION. 

losophy, which must begin in tliis pure thought-process. 
Instead of standing at the outside and looking on, as Schel- 
ling had done, Hegel puts himself within the thought- 
movement. This is a peculiarity to be marked. The stu- 
dent of this philosophy must not at aU look on, nor look 
forward to forecast what may come, but must absorb his 
attention in the movement itself, and let the process bring 
out in its development what it may. In this method, he 
is made to think over again the great thought of the uni- 
verse. 

The critical philosophy is consummated in Hegehanism. 
No passage can be opened to any further speculation in 
this direction. The philosophic life in Germany is in sus- 
pended activity, and must so be retained until the appre- 
hension of the incompleteness of the critical method shall 
induce to the setting of some new germ in quite another 
soU. It began in the attainment of facts which transcend 
consciousness, and from these determined the modifications 
that must be given in consciousness. From Kant to Hegel 
it successively threw off more and more of that which had 
any objective reality, till it found itself at last with only a 
thought-movement in self-repeUency ; a going out each way 
in counter-negations ; a being in what was known as the 
" universal negativity ;" and in the development of such 
abstract thought-process, it assumed to determine all pos- 
sible human cognition. It dealt only with facts, though 
transcendentaUy attained, and ignored all immutable prin- 
ciples. It concluded, from the facts found in us, what and 
how we must know, and was thus solely a critic of the 
human understanding, without attempting to determine 
any other order of knowing. We have in it a critic of 



PKOGEESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 47 

human knowledge, but no science determining the validity 
of any form of knowing. It called itself rationalism, but is 
purely transcendental logic. It nowhere brings in the 
work of the comprehending reason, and uses solely the 
faculty of the connecting understanding. It is, at last, 
quite as empty as the scholastic logic, for it excludes all 
that is objectively real, and can thus never rise out of the 
sphere of the subjective ideal. That it should carry out 
and posit a valid objective, would demand that it should 
have the eternally real within its own subjective ; but this 
is the Platonic, and not at all the Germanic transcendent- 
alism. In making the understanding void at the begin- 
ning, no possible process of logical thinking can fill it at 
the close. It thus commences in a specious delusion, and 
terminates in a stupendous dream. 

By surreptitiously raising the abstract and empty 
thought-process to a personality, and calling it the "world- 
spirit," the philosophy could elaborately disclose how this 
world-spirit educated itself to self-consciousness, and to 
know the universe as its own objective manifestation. The 
material universe and the spiritual humanity are develop- 
ments of this absolute world-spirit, and the destiny and the 
immortality of man is, that he see himself identical with 
the absolute world-spirit, and that in the endless ongoing 
of the thought-process the universal mind is coming out, 
and the absolute is perfecting in self-consciousness, and in 
this is all the Humanity, and Deity, and Immortality, and 
Philosophy, that man can know. Surely Transcendental- 
ism, though taking a longer road, and travelling through 
much more aerial regions, has hardly come out ahead of 
Common Sense, and done httle more than any other school 



48 INTKODrCTION. 

which admits only facts, to rescue Theology and Philosophy 
from Hume's skepticism or Comte's positivism. 

Thus, ever, must the labor of the connecting under- 
standing prove itself utterly incompetent for a vahd theol- 
ogy or philosophy, and this as truly in the method of in- 
duction and of common sense as of the scholastic syllogism, 
and again as truly in a transcendental critic as in any other. 
It must think through a medium, and can never origiaate 
without somethiug to come from, and something to put 
forth, and must thus have its Maker and Governor already 
made and conditioned. In the contemplation of its most 
profound abstractions, broad inductions, and transcendental 
developments, it is ever within the charmed circle of na- 
ture, and condemned to toil under the bondage of already 
determined conditions, and we are forced to cry — 

Unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how vain a thing is man ! 

His progress is a cycle, and his path a tread-mill. A 
personal God is inconceivable within this sphere, and to 
this sphere there can be no conception of an outer and a 
beyond. Theology cannot begin, and philosophy cannot 
finish ; for the first can find no Deity, and the last can find 
no link in which there is a reason for the whole chain. 

We have, at last, the offer of Eclecticism, but it is not 
in a method to afford us any help. The name is here with 
no appropriate application. As the taking of what is deem- 
ed to be true from all other systems. Eclecticism must first 
have its own measure, or it cannot of right take any thing 
fi'om any system ; and when it has its own measure, it has 



PKOGKESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 49 

already its own philosophic being and method. In other 
words, it already exists before any electing, and has its 
own law and method in order to any claim upon others. 
And in its author it has its well-expressed doctrine and 
method. Cousin's method dispenses at once with all tran- 
scendental analysis, and attains the absolute by direct con- 
sciousness. The human mind has the finite, the condi- 
tioned, the relative, immediately in consciousness, and to 
these, the infinite, the unconditioned, the absolute, are re- 
spectively correlatives. The first cannot be in conscious- 
ness without the latter, for indeed the first is nothing ex- 
cept in correlation with the latter. Just as the odd is 
nothing without the conception also of the even, so the 
finite, the relative, &c., are nothing without their conceived 
correlatives of the infinite, the absolute, &c. Where one 
is, the other must at the same time be. In the possession 
of these, we have also immediately their relation in con- 
sciousness, and can thus distinguish the one from the other. 
Given the finite^ there is also at once with this given, the 
infinite^ and the relation of the two ; and in this apprehen- 
sion of the infinite, the absolute, &c., we have the con- 
scious knowledge of God. 

All this is the spontaneous operation of the primitive 
consciousness, and thus belongs to all men in common, and 
may be known as reason. But in analyzing this operation 
and its results, each man goes about it in his own way, and 
each may have his peculiar opinion. Reason is thus com- 
mon, impersonal, true; reflection is particular, personal, 
fallible. Taking the veracious reason, it spontaneously 
gives the absolute immediately and necessarily with every 

relative that comes into consciousness. Cousin takes cau- 
4 



50 INTEODUCTION. 

sality only as the ground of his relative, and thus the rela- 
tive cause at once gives the absolute cause, and this abso- 
lute cause is the Deity. He further proceeds, by saying, 
that causahty is nothiag except in action, and therefore 
the absolute cause must act, and go out into effect. The 
universe is as necessarily from the Deity, as the Deity is 
necessary to the universe. And, further, while G-od must 
go out into effect, yet does he not exhaust himself in the 
act of manifesting himself m objective effects; He is, and 
the universe also is, and such duality, he argues, excludes 
Pantheism. 

But this reason, or spontaneous consciousness, is still 
only the faculty of a connecting judgment, and, as before 
said, can never attain to a legitimate theology or philoso- 
phy. The delusion is easily made transparent. Because 
the finite and relative suggest the Infinite and Absolute, it 
is thereby said that we know the Infinite and Absolute. A 
suggested conception becomes a cognition. But beyond 
this is the deeper delusion, that we attaia a true Deity in 
this conceived Infinite or Absolute. Suppose we take the 
finite as applied to time or space, and let this be supposed 
truly to give Infinite time or space ; is such Infinite the 
Deity ? Or again, suppose we have the relative phenom- 
ena, and these suggest, or even validly give, the Absolute 
substance ; is this Absolute substance the Deity ? Accord- 
ing to the philosophy, both Infinite time or space, and 
Absolute substance, should be God. But causality is act- 
ually taken, only because causahty may the better be taken 
as Creator and Ruler, than either time, space, or substance. 
Take then Absolute cause, and is this the Deity ? N'ot at 
all. It is only a conception of the logical understanding, 



PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION. 51 

and has its inherent conditioning just as truly as any second 
cause proceeding from it. It must go out into effect ; yea, 
into just the effect determined in its own conditioning. It 
is cause caused, though arbitrarily termed absolute cause. 
There is here no personality ; no capacity to originate ; no 
self-determination ; nothing of the supernatural. The ab- 
solute cause is nature still, and has in it its conditioned 
constitution, and we could never love and worship it, nor 
think a univei'se as coming from it, except as itself a part 
of it. Such a method can by no possibility reach to a true 
theology or philosophy. 

The Platonic philosophy had the conception of God, as 
the Good, and thus as moral personahty, and not at all as 
absolute substance or absolute cause. In this conception 
there was occasion given for the cognition of God as super- 
natural, while the restricting of the conception to substance 
or cause, though absurdly applying the term Absolute, 
necessarily confined it still within nature. God must be 
author of all substance and cause, and can himself be 
restricted by the conditions of no substances or causes. 
His conditionings can only be from the rational claims 
which spriQg eternally from his own rational being. What 
it behooves him to do as due to his own glory, or supreme 
excellency of being, that only can determine his action, and 
not at all the constituted nature of a substance or of a 
cause. Divine revelation has widely diffused the concep- 
tion of a God, absolute, personal, supernatural ; who origi- 
nates the natures of all things " according to the coimsel 
of his own will," or, which is the same thing, according to 
the claims of his own rationahty, without himself being 
subjected to any nature. He looks only to the Archetypes 



52 INTKODUCTION. 

essentially within his own rational Spirit, for the direction 
of all his creative and administrative energy. And it is a 
marvel and a reproach, that with all this Platonic and this 
Christian teaching, the world's philosophies are, to-day, all 
radically materiahstic ; holding all being as fact, or consti- 
tutionally natured ; and are thus necessarily, in the end, 
Atheistic or Pantheistic. Seen from a comprehensive point 
of vision, they invariably and inevitably lead logically out 
to a complete exclusion of an absolute, personal, super- 
natural being from human knowledge and even from human 
conception. The reason of universal humanity calls for, 
and acknowledges, an unbegun, unmade, and supernatural 
Beginner, Maker, and Finisher of all that has a nature ; 
and the Christian heart worships a Jehovah, whose sover- 
eignty and authority lie underived and solely in the abso- 
lute behest of his own reason ; while all speculative phi- 
losophy has come to ignore and deny every conception 
which cannot be brought within the connections of the 
logical understanding and subjected to the determinations 
of some constitutional nature. The conception of a Being 
who may begin from himself, and create objectively to him- 
self, without finding liimself caused to do so by any pre- 
vious conditioning, seems utterly to have fallen out of all 
philosophical intelhgence. Where is the philosophy, which 
can logically from its method, present a God to our ac- 
ceptance as a causa causans, without being thoroughly a 
causa causata f Who seems to feel any shock at the ab- 
surdity and impiety of talking about the nature of God, 
and the nature of the divine T\all, as if the awful preroga- 
tives of the supernatural could be brought and bound 
within the conditions of the natural ? Our religious con- 



THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY POSSIBLE. 53 

sciousness is clear and complete for an absolutely super- 
natural ; our philosopliic consciousness is, dogmatically or 
in its own supiaeness, trained to the restrictions of a rela- 
tively conditioned nature of things. It is among the 
strongest evidences of the deep and permanent working 
of the immortal reason within the soul, that notwithstand- 
ing the wide-spread prevalence of a philosophy everywhere 
sinking the Deity to a fact, there is yet the growing power 
of a religion which worships him as an unmade Spirit, in 
spirit and in truth. How much more rapidly may the 
knowledge and the worship of the true God spread, when 
philosophy herself shall become converted to, and baptized 
in, a Gospel theism ! 

What then we need for a truly rational theology is 
the conception and complete recognition of an absolutely 
supernatural Being — a God for the rational soul, and not 
conditioned to the physical necessities of the logical under- 
standing. Such a demand met is sufficient for theology, 
and a valid answer to the perfectly logical Skepticism and 
Positivism before stated. Such theology may then be safe- 
ly laid as the starting-point for a true rational cosmology^ 
and in which may be embodied a thoroughly comprehen- 
sive and conclusive philosophy. In this way only is a valid 
theology or philosophy possible. In this way nature may 
be fairly presented as subjected to the determiuing condi- 
tions of immutable priaciple, and thus the facts of nature 
come to be known in their inherent laws, and having an 
eternal reason why thus they are, and not of some other 
nature. So matter itself may be expounded ; so all the 
laws of motion, of gravity, of fluids, of falling bodies, of 
magnetism and electricity, of chemical and crystaliziug 



54 mTEODUCTION. 

agencies, of the ensphering and revolving of suns and 
planetary systems, and of the superinducing of vegetable 
and animal life, and of rational intelligence, may be in- 
terpreted. The fuU insight of all nature's facts, so as 
thoroughly to read all nature's laws, will not at first, nor 
very soon, be attained ; but enough may be presented to 
give assurance that there is a rational philosophy of nature, 
as there is a vahd theology above nature, and that we have 
started on the right path to find and finish it. 



RATIONAL COSMOLOGY. 



GEJ^EKAL METHOD, 

That we may attain to a rational idea of Creation, it 
will be important that we first attain a rational idea of 
a Creator. Creation is an origination; something made 
where before there was nothing ; and the universal Cosmos 
is inclusive of all that is so made. The Creator himself 
must then he without origin, and inhabiting eternity. The 
Cosmos is also a creation, beautiful and orderly, fashioned 
according to the determinations of immutable principle, 
and moves onward to a proposed and purposed consummar 
tion ; the Creator must therefore be its Governor and Fin- 
isher, as well as its Author. He must originate all, and 
guide all that he originates to the end proposed. 

Now the conception of such a Being is neither readily 
attained nor easily expressed. An absolute Author and 
Finisher, who encompasses all things before and after, 
while he himself is encompassed by nothing, is necessarily 
incomprehensible to a finite understanding, and can in no 
way be subjected to logical thought. No faculty can take 
cognizance of such a being but the insight of reason alone. 
The attainment of the idea involves all that has been 



56 RATIONAL COSMOLOGY. 

termed "the Philosophy of the Infinite" — the Problem 
for finding the Absolute— and which by some of the most 
honored names has been denied to be at all accessible by the 
human mind. Others have deemed the problem to be of 
practicable solution, and have made labored attempts to 
accomphsh it, while, under the delusion occasioned by the 
use of the wrong intellectual functions, they have only pro- 
duced specious absurdities, or run out abstractions to utter 
negations. 

A position can be attained, from whence these false 
methods of dealing with the problem may be seen in the 
necessities of the case to be futile ; while by employing the 
appropriate faculty, the attainment of the idea of the Abso- 
lute may be completely successful. In a former work of 
Rational Psychology, a more extended examination of the 
subject has been made than is here needed, but inasmuch 
as a clear idea of an absolute Creator and Governor is con- 
ditional for aU intelligent approach to a Rational Cosmolo- 
gy, a concise and independent mode for its attainment will 
be here presented. This will occupy the space given to 
the First Chapter, 

Having thus the clear idea of the Creator, we shall be 
prepared to enter upon a detailed efibrt to attain a compre- 
hensive idea of the creation itself. If the Creator must 
make and guide the universal cosmos after the determina- 
tions of immutable principles, so that his work may be 
truly fact pervaded by principle, then must the great plan 
have already been laid in the reason, as the archetypal idea 
of the whole making and finishing. To no finite reason, is 
it to be anticipated, that this plan will ever reveal itself in 
aU the clearness and completeness of the divine Ideal ; yet 



GENERAI. METHOD. 57 

nothing hinders, since such a plan certainly is, that the hu- 
man reason may not earnestly and reverently apply its 
powers to the attainment of its grand outlines, and in the 
teaching of eternal principles find, by a rational insight, 
what and how creation must have been, and read her great 
laws, not as mere arbitrary facts, but as the necessary result 
of a work rationally begun and wisely accomplished. This 
will fill, at much greater length, the Second Chapter. 

When the Cosmos is attained in its plan and principle, 
it will be necessary to take the facts as actually given in 
experience, and study them with the direct design to find 
their law as plainly determined in the eternal principle. 
Facts teach nothing until they are seen in their principles ; 
but when the principle is apphed to the fact, and the fact is 
read and expounded in the principle, then have we, and 
only then, a rational philosophy. This will be the work 
for the Third Chapter^ and which might be prolonged 
indefinitely. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE IDEA OF AN ABSOLUTE CREATOR AND GOVERNOR. 

The human intellect has three different functions for 
knowing, in each of which the processes pursued and the 
cognitions attained are different in kind one from the 
other, and no supposable augmentation of degrees can 
bring them to become identical. An imperfect analysis, 
which fails in the psychological recognition of these three 
different kinds of knowing, among other imperfections and 
errors, will inevitably exclude from all intelligent approach 
to the question of the Absolute, and oblige to the denial 
that any such conception can be legitimately sought by a 
finite mind. These three distinct functions of intellectual 
agency are the Sense, the Understanding, and the Reason. 
An Absolute may be sought in them all ; the true Absolute 
can be conceived and attained only in one ; the nature of 
the case d priori determining that, to both the functions 
of the sense and the discursive understanding, all attempts 
towards the conception of an Absolute involve an absurdity, 
and must therefore ever rest under an utter impossibility, 
while the reason is directly competent to state and expound 
the whole problem. 



THE ABSOLUTE AS THE INFINITE. 59 

The intellectual agency in the sense performs its work 
and attains its end only through a process of conjoining 
the manifold into unity, and thus constructing the indefi- 
nite within limits. This agency in the understanding works 
to its end only by connecting the separate and fleeting into 
a permanent, and by this discursive process concluding in 
judgments. In the reason, the intellectual agency attains 
its end by an immediate insight^ which detects the neces- 
sary principle that comprehends the universal within it, and 
in this compass of all that has limit and relation at once 
attains and recognizes the Absolute. If we make these 
processes of intellectual agency cursorily to pass beneath 
our inspection, we may clearly determine in the cases them- 
selves why the first two cannot reach to an Absolute, and 
how the last can both attain and expound it. 

1. The Absolute as the Infinite.— The mere sensa- 
tion in any organ can be only a content given for a percep- 
tion, but cannot complete the perception in any case. An 
intellectual action is necessary first to distinguish the pecu- 
liar sensation and thereby attain the quality, and then to 
bring the whole within limits and thereby determine the 
quantity. Quantity may have limits under three general 
modifications, viz., limit in space, and thus shape be per- 
ceived; limit in time, and thus period be attained; and 
limit in the intensity of the sensation, and thus the amount 
of the quality be known. No matter how distinct the 
quality, the quantity must also be made definite or we can- 
not have a clear and complete perception. We may ob- 
serve the colors distinctly on the page of a book, but with- 
out an accurate defining in shape we shall not know the 
etters. 



60 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

This intellectual act of defining may be made a pure- 
ly subjective operation within the mind alone, and the 
limits of degree of intensity would then be excluded, as 
having relevancy only to some actual sensation, lea^-iag 
only limits which determine the definite shape in pure space 
and the definite period m pure time. But such construc- 
tions within pure space or time can be possible only in one 
method. The intellectual agency must go through the 
contiguous points in space and conjoin them into a line, 
and thus carry the line about an area, or it cannot define 
any pure shape ; and must also go through the consecutive 
instants in time, and thus begin and terminate a duration, 
or it cannot define any pure period. In other words, the 
intellect can possess no definite forms in either space or 
time except as it constructs them itself by its own act. 
Pure space and time will not have any limits in them, but 
only as the intellectual agency makes them. 

ISTow the Absolute, in either space or time, must be a 
whole which cannot be carried out any fiirther, and is thus 
absolved from any further modification. It is either a 
whole so small as not to be capable of further diminution, 
or a whole so large as not to admit of fiirther augmenta- 
tion. From the very necessity of the case, the conjoining 
agency that constructs within limits, and thus determines a 
completed whole, must itself describe the boundaries and 
carry its own lines entirely around every form that it at- 
tains. It can have no figures that it does not itself describe, 
and no periods that it does not itself limit by both begin- 
ning and ending. We wiU then put such a conjoining 
agency upon its search for the Absolute in the direction for 
finding a whole so small that it cannot be further dimin- 



THE ABSOLUTE AS THE INFINITE. 61 

ished. The insight of the reason may enable the intellect 
to say of a circle, for an example, that there must be a 
point in it which has no radii, but in which all the radii of 
the circle terminate ; or, that if that circle with its area 
revolve, there must be a point in it which does not revolve 
and which can thus have no upper nor lower portion of the 
circumference; and in each case there must be involved 
the conclusion that here is that which cannot be further 
diminished. As a supposed absolute, the intellectual agen- 
cy may set itself in this dii-ection to construct and thus to 
possess an absolutely least whole. In order to its attain- 
ment as a whole it must construct it within limits, and 
must either begin within and go out to and around its cii'- 
cumference, or begin without and describe its circumfer- 
ence around its centre within, and can never possess any 
completed whole, however small, without thus drawing 
hues about it. But no such whole can be the absolutely 
least, for it must have its upper and lower portions of the 
circumference, and be capable of revolution, and possess 
radii. The Absolute, to the insight of reason, in this direc- 
tion, is not thus of any constructed whole as a limited, but 
only of a limit ; a point between upper and lower portions 
of a circumference, or a point neither out of nor within the 
radii, but the limit where they terminate. The Absolute, 
thus, cannot be conjoined as a whole for the sense, but is 
necessarily to it the infinite ; that at which the conjoining 
agency may begin, or that at which it may finish, but that 
at which it cannot both begin and finish. The intuitive 
Absolute must thus be indefinable by the only fimction 
which the sense can employ ; and the absolutely least, as a 
whole so small that it may not become smaller, is to the 



62 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

sense an utterly imattainable cognition. Its smallest must 
be wholly constructed within limits, and ever that which is 
limited the limit can divide. The same is true of period as 
of place, and thus the attainment of a whole as absolutely 
the smallest is necessarily impracticable. 

We will agaiQ put this conjoining agency upon its 
search for the Absolute in the direction of attaining a whole 
so large that it cannot be augmented. The comprehending 
reason may say of space, that there must be a whole of im- 
mensity which is not any part of itself; and also may say 
of time, that there must be a whole of eternity which can- 
not be any of its parts ; and the intellectual agency may go 
forth to construct this absolutely greatest whole. As before 
in diminution, so here in augmentation, the conjoining in- 
tellect can have no whole which it has not completely sur- 
rounded by the line that itself carries, and thus can know 
no whole of space without completely limiting all space, 
and can know no whole of time without completely boimd- 
ing eternity. But the greatest definite place is not yet all 
space, and the greatest definite period is not yet all time, 
and thus at the furthest augmentation there is more beyond, 
and however much may have been defined, yet of both im- 
mensity and eternity still we must say, that each is the 
ii^iNiTE ; that which it is impracticable to finish. 

As now, the only fields in which a conjoining intellectual 
agency can work are those of space and time, and as in 
neither can an absolutely least nor an absolutely largest be 
attained, it is quite manifest, from the nature of the case, 
that in no way to the sense can the Absolute become known. 
The forecasting reason postulates both the absolutely least 
and largest, but when the constructing sense sets out to 



THE ABSOLUTE AS THE UNCONDmONED. 63 

execute the work, it ever finds itself with the infinite be- 
yond, and never that it is at the Absolute. There is an 
intrinsic antinomy in the human mind ; a law that demands 
an Absolute, and a law that fi^rbids it should be foimd ; and 
till an accurate analysis has discriminated and thus recon- 
ciled the different functions of knowing, the mind is really 
a riddle or an apparent absurdity to itself. To the sense 
there can never be an absolute whole, either the least or 
the largest ; there stUl ever remains to it only the Infinite. 

2. The Absolute as the Unconditioned. — When we 
have put the quality completely withia limits, and thereby 
made it to stand out in consciousness as a definite whole, 
the intellectual function in conjoining or constructing has 
done all its work, and the product is a perception, or a 
phenomenon taken through sense. The definite qualities 
are thus known, but these qualities are so known only as 
separate and fleeting appearances. The sense can affirm 
what thus appears, but cannot at all think the appearing 
separate qualities to be the attributes of some common sub- 
ject. The sense can give definitely all the qualities which 
belong to the rose, but in the sense they are separate quali- 
ties only, and no subject, as the rose, appears in the sense 
at all, nor any act which puts the qualities together mto the 
subject rose is at all put forth by any intellectual agency in 
the sense. There must here be introduced altogether 
another kind of agency than that which conjoins within 
limits. We need for this the connecting agency of the 
understanding, and which is explauied in the following 
manner : 

The sense can take no cognizance of a substance^ but 
only of the qualities. The qualities appear, the substance 



64 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

does not appear. I think that some existing thing has im- 
pressed the organ of sense, and thereby has given a sensa- 
tion which I have discriminated and defined, and in my 
thought^ I refer this distinct and definite appearance to that 
thing as its subject ; and then in as many ways and through 
as many organs as that thing is thought to give distinct and 
definite j^henomena, I successively conclude these phenome- 
na to belong to it, and thus judge discursively the quali- 
ties to be predicated of one common subject ; or, which is 
the same thing, the quahties of one common substance. 
The sense gave the qualities distinctly and definitely, and 
then quite another intellectual function intervenes, and, 
taking each quality discursively through the same sub- 
stance as given in thought, connects them all in it by judg- 
ing them all to inhere there together. The quahties are 
thus no longer separate, but the attributes of that one 
substance, and these qualities thus connected in that one 
substance, are known henceforth as one thing. By thus 
thinking in judgments we come to know that the sense 
phenomena have their common ground in the one sub- 
stance we have thought for them, and the intellectual func- 
tion, by which we have been enabled to connect these 
quahties into one thing by making this substance to stand 
under them, we term the understanding. From the nature 
of the case, it is thus impossible that an understanding 
should work in connecting quahties into things, except as 
the notion of substance is given to it ; the moment the 
thought of the substance is lost, the very medium of all 
possible connection of the quahties would be gone. 

StiU further, the qualities as given in the sense often 
vary in the same ground, and the one thing changes its ap- 



THE ABSOLUTE AS THE UNCONDITIONED. 65 

pearance. The hardness and brittleness, &c., of the ice 
give place to the fluidity and Hmpidness, &c., of the water. 
We think these last quahties as still in the same substance, 
and thus know both the ice and the water to be yet one 
thing, and yet we think that one substance to have been so 
modified by the presence of some other substance, that the 
old qualities were made to pass away, and other qualities as 
new events to come out from the same source. The passing 
away of one and the coming of another event is given in 
the sense ; the sequences appear ; but the modifying effi- 
ciency of the one substance upon the other does not 
appear. This is thought only, and the discursive process 
again brings the successive events into connection through 
these modifying combinations of substances, and knows 
the modifying efficiency as cause and the modified event as 
efiect, and thus judges the sequences to be a linked and 
orderly series. The understanding, again, must have this 
notion of cause, or from the necessity of the case the only 
medium for connecting the sequences into a linked series 
would be lost. All qualities are thus judged as inhering in 
some substance, and all events as adhering to some cause, 
and thus the separate qualities of the sense and their 
changes are bound in connection as one common nature of 
things, and all constitute but one world or universe. 

It is now manifest, that in this field of the understand- 
ing, as before in the field of the sense, the occasion is given 
for seeking after the Absolute, though in quite a difierent 
form. Not the Absolute in reference to any limited and 
completed whole, whether least, or largest, but the Abso- 
lute as the substance which has nothing deeper, or the 

cause which has nothing higher. We thus put this con- 
5 



66 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

necting agency upon the searcli for the Absolute, in the first 
place, in the direction of the absolutely deepest substance. 
The reason may intuitively say that some substance 
must be the ultimate ground on which aU substances rest, 
and the discursive understanduig may be put upon the start 
actually to attain to it. These qualities have been judged 
to inhere in a common substance, but on what does this 
substance rest ? It cannot be self-supported, for from the 
necessity of the case a connecting understanding must have 
the medium through which the discursive connections are 
to run, and so soon as you leave the substance to itself it 
hangs as helplessly over a void as would a quality without 
a substance. The understanding must, therefore, think 
this substance as some modification of a deeper substance, 
and if it would reach the Absolute by thinkiag in discursive 
judgments, it dooms itself to an endless descent where 
each dropping footstep can only fall upon a stair that must 
be conditioned upon another yet beneath it. To attempt 
the conception of a substance originated, or of a substance 
annihilated, is the absurdity of connecting without a medi- 
mn ; of thinking a substance that was itself unsubstantial, 
or of thinking away a substance that yet should leave . all 
above it to be substantial. It would cut off the thought 
from all possibility of connection, and the discursive under- 
standing can look at this only in horror and helplessness. 
An absolute substance is thus manifestly unattainable, and 
could be conceived only as an arbitrary stopping upon some 
one as an ultimate, but which yet, by the very necessity of 
the thinking function that demanded this for all above, de- 
mands for this yet also another beneath. An absolute sub- 
stance would be THE UNCONDITIONED J the substance that 



THE ABSOLUTE AS THE UNCONDITIONED. 67 

stood under all others with no substance under it; but 
such conception of the unconditioned could not also be a 
conception of the substantial. The absolute substance is 
necessarily to the understanding an absurdity ; a contradic- 
tion to the necessity of thought ; and can therefore never 
become a cognition to the discursive intellect. The true 
Absolute is as remote here from an unconditioned substance, 
as before in the sense from the infinite in space. 

In another direction, the discursive intellect may be put 
upon the search for the Absolute cause. The reason may 
affirm that there must be a cause which is the source of all 
causes, and as thus itself uncaused is an absolute cause, and 
the understanding sent on the way after it. But, again, 
from the necessity of a 'discursive process, the medium of 
connection must be maintained, and the attempt to stand 
on any cause arbitrarily assumed to be the ultimate in the 
regressus, or the first in the outgoing of the following 
series, is the putting yourself with one foot on a retreating 
stair while the other vainly seeks to plant itself upon va- 
cancy. The Absolute cause is for the understanding an 
unconditioned cause ; a source of all causes with no con- 
dition above itself what shall come out of itself; and is thus 
the absurdity of a source for all efficiency with nothing to 
make itself effective. The true Absolute is as diverse from 
an unconditioned cause here in the understanding, as it 
was before in the sense from the Infinite in time. 

There is here as manifest an antinomy in the human 
intellect as before in the sense. The reason forecasts and 
postulates a substance that has no substance beneath it, 
and a cause that has no cause above it, and yet the very 
function of the discursive understanding forbids that such 



68 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLTJTE. 

an Absolute should be cognized or even conceived. There 
is an insoluble paradox from the very working of the hu- 
man intellect, except as in our psychological analysis we 
have foimd that the function demanding and the function 
forbidding are entirely distinct in kind, and that each is 
to be held responsible only for its own cognitions in its own 
processes. 

3. The Absolute as en" the Uia)EESTANT)iNG itsele. — 
There is also another method of attaining to an Absolute, 
which takes the understanding itself, and transcending the 
consciousness, in which is all our ordinary experience, 
carries out an analysis of the understanding, as the function 
of judgment, to its constituent elements, and finds an Ab- 
solute in the understanding itself. This is still a use of the 
discursive faculty, and only turning its action upon the 
constitutive elements of its own being instead, as before, 
upon either space and time in the sense, or upon the no- 
tions of substance and cause in the thought, and instead of 
an absolute whole so small as not to be diminished or so 
large as not to be increased, or an absolute substance or 
absolute cause, it assumes to find an Absolute in the under- 
standing itself. 

Beginning in Kant and passing through the sj)ecula- 
tions of Fichte and Schelling to Hegel, we have the fol- 
lowing modifications of this method of finding the Absolute 
in the understanding itself. The human understanding is 
taken as the faculty for thinking in judgments, and is origi- 
nally constituted to possess certain primitive conceptions 
which become the general forms for all varieties of logical 
judgments, and which are thus termed the categories of the 
pure understanding. These primitive forms, with which 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE UNDERSTANDING. 69 

our human understanding is constitutionally endowed, de- 
termine and limit cur whole sphere of knowing, and when 
analytically formed they enable the transcendental philoso- 
pher to say beforehand, from the very constitution of the 
faculty of judging, what is the entire capacity of man for 
attaining cognitions. He can know in all the forms pro- 
vided for him in these primitive conceptions, and can con- 
clude in no judgments which do not range themselves 
under some one of these categories. 

Above the general forms for concluding in judgments 
through logical syllogisms, there is also a constitutional pro- 
vision for directing the ascent from the major premiss of 
one syllogism to the conclusion of another on which it has 
depended. The major premiss of any logical syllogism 
must be an assumption, except as it has been deduced in 
the conclusion of a pro-syllogism ; and to prompt and 
direct the mind along this ascending way up the ladder of 
syllogisms, there is the higher primitive conception of the 
Infinite, or the Unconditioned, constitutionally given to 
man, and which, as the subjective Idea of the Absolute, 
regulates this logical regressus in the same manner as if a 
real ultimate might at length be reached, beyond which 
there would be no occasion for a pro-syllogism. As the 
primitive conceptions for single syllogisms were termed 
categories of the pure understanding, so the primitive con- 
ceptions in the various processes of rising to the Infinite, 
the Unconditioned, and the Absolute, were termed the 
categories of the pure reason. 

The understanding and the reason are thus only differ- 
ent varieties of the same logical function for concluding in 
judgments, one regulating its process by given primitive 



70 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

conceptions in tlie simple syllogism, and the other regu- 
lating its process by a higher grade of primitive conceptions 
m the ascending march through indefinite pro-syllogisms. 
The reason is still discursive, and not at all the immediate 
insight of the Platonic Reason. The Absolute is here a 
primitive conception; a regulative form of thought in the 
subjective understanding ; and thus an ideal Absolute only. 
Whether there be a veritable ultimate or not can never be 
determined by the human mind, for it can only regulate its 
search for it by this subjective ideal Absolute, and can 
never reach it. The true Absolute is wholly problematical ; 
it can neither be proved nor disproved ; the ideal Absolute 
constitutionally given to the human mind is all that can be 
cognized by man. We are so made that we think an Ab- 
solute, and thus regulate our ascent toward it ; but we 
can never attain to it and plant our logical footsteps 
upon it. 

This Kantean Idea of the Absolute in the Understanding 
became subsequently transposed for an Absolute Under- 
standing itself. That agency, which works out in con- 
sciousness the ego or the self that we know, must be back 
of the ego or self which is known, and cannot itself be 
brought up into the light of consciousness. The self which 
we come to know is the intellectual product of a deeper 
self which we cannot make to appear. This deeper self 
works up into consciousness a self which is then known as 
subject, and also that which is distinct from self, a not-self, 
which is then known as object, and thus our whole ex- 
perience of subject and object has a deeper source abso- 
lutely independent of all conscious experience. This under- 
lying self which develops itself into the conscious self, and 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE UNDERSTANDING. 71 

also into the conscious not-self, i. 6., into both the subjective 
and the objective, is also altogether the source for each per- 
sonal self in its separate consciousness, and therefore out of 
it come, and in it are identified, all separate self-conscious- 
nesses, all subjective, and all objective experiences. One 
absolute self is the germ that evolves itself into distinct 
personalities, into conscious subjective experience, and into 
the conscious experience of all that is objective ; and hence 
the whole intellectual Hfe of humanity is but an outgrowth 
from an Absolute, which is back of, and beyond all possi- 
bility of appearing in, consciousness, and which can be 
known in no way but by " an Intellectual Intuition," which 
penetrates beneath the subjective consciousness and beholds 
it face to face. This Absolute Ego is taken to be a real, 
acting, self-evolving bemg ; the identification in himself of 
all that comes to have existence ; and all existence is, in 
fact, only the stating or positing of his perpetual self-evolu- 
tion. An Absolute real understanding thinks out into sub- 
jective and objective existence all that is known. 

Ultimately, this Absolute real being, thinking itself out 
into personality, subjective consciousness, and objective ex- 
perience, becomes thoroughly dissolved into an utter ab- 
straction, and there is no longer a self, or ego, as a veritable 
understanding, but solely a thinking process / not any sub- 
strate agent, but merely a living movement ; and this pure 
thinking movement is assumed as the Absolute, and by a 
law of perpetual dialectics, or reciprocal counter-negations, 
works out the universe of unconscious matter and self- 
conscious mind. The Absolute thought-movement, begin- 
ning in abstract being, which as entirely abstract has no 
distinction, and is thus identical with naught first denies or 



72 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

negates that it is naugM, and then by a counter-negation 
denies that nanght is being, and thus posits being as no 
longer abstract being, but as being excluded by naught ; 
and thus m this diremptive, or counter-negative movement, 
abstract being has come to stand out with naught ovei 
against it, and each mutually excluding the other, and is 
thus the thought of existence. But the thought-movement 
cannot rest in existence ; it goes out from existence and 
negates any limit, and thus thinks the Infinite, and return- 
ing to existence it again negates the Infinite as limited in 
existence, and thus thinks the Finite ; and in this counter- 
negation of the Infinite and Finite, existence has become 
in the thought not merely a being as standing out from 
nothing, but being as every way limiting itself, and is thus 
being per se. Thus the living movement is traced through 
a perpetual series of counter-negations, each one conveying 
the thought further on and positmg a new cognition, till 
the thought-process has given in its course all of nature, 
educated itself to self-consciousness, to universal intelli- 
gence, and at length to divine Omniscience. Thus Kant's 
Absolute is a subjective regulative thought ; Schelling's 
Absolute is the infinite understanding in its original germ ; 
and Hegel's Absolute is an abstract thought-movement 
which has not yet posited any thought, but in its endless 
ongoing is at length to state existence, nature, personality, 
humanity and developed Deity, and come at length to 
know itself as the subject of whatever is, and the object of 
whatever itself knows. 

Of this whole transcendental method for finding an Ab- 
solute, we can say, from the necessity of the case, it must 
be unsuccessful. It uses only a discursive faculty and em- 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE UNDERSTANDING. 73 

ploys only the processes of analysis and abstraction. It 
begins in experience, and analyzes and abstracts till it as- 
sumes to find that in which experience is conditioned. But 
this root and source for all experience is still a constituted 
being ; a something given with its own necessitated law of 
action imposed upon it ; and even when the abstraction has 
gone beyond all substrate being, and retained only a move- 
ment in which there is nothing moving, it still must come 
under an intestine necessity, and work according to a con- 
stituted nature, and subject itself to conditions it already 
finds within it, and above which it can never exalt itself, 
and from which it can never deliver itself. It transcends 
experience, not by going back to eternal principle which 
must determine all experience, but simply by going back 
of human consciousness and finding the constitutional ele- 
ments which regulate human experience in consciousness, 
and thus determining what our human understanding can 
know, simply because it finds that we are made with func- 
tions that primitively capacitate us to know thus, and not 
otherwise. 

"N"ot that which is above fact and nature, but that only 
which is above human consciousness is sought, that in the 
end it may attain a constituted principiimi^ a created 
source for all that conscious experience has given. This 
the discursive understanding can very well accomplish, for it 
is only undoing its own work and raveling out the thread 
that it has knit. Having put together by a connective pro- 
cess in judging, it may readily unweave its own web, and 
go back in abstraction towards nihility, until nothing be left 
but the mere semblance of any content in the thought, and 
then by terming this highest abstract element the Abso- 



74: THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

lute, it may readily begin with it and retrace its old pro- 
cess of putting things together, and in this assume that the 
ideal work is creation, and the empty product a universe. 
But from the nature of the process, if it stop short of ut- 
ter annihilation, the highest abstraction must be still some- 
thing that the intellect had when it began the analysis, and 
can be no more an Absolute above and beyond nature than 
was the whole furniture of its thought when it began the 
abstraction. By analyzing and abstracting from the con- 
ditioned we are making no progress toward an tmcon- 
ditioned. and an endless analysis and abstraction of the 
understauding can never find an Absolute. 

We may readily cheat ourselves by calling this abstract 
thought-process the world-spirit, as if it possessed a valid 
being, and then call the empty thinking the development 
of this world-spirit, and delude ourselves as if we had bmlt 
over in our thought that which the world-spirit had actual- 
ly posited and stated in its ongoing ; and yet even this de- 
lusive creator and creation would be a thoroughly finite and 
conditioned conception. This assumed world-spirit can 
only act in one way, and go out in one process, and take 
one step in its perpetual counter-negations at a time, and 
all this with no final end to be reached, and no free purpose 
to be attained, and no approving inward consciousness to 
cheer and reward it. All is thoroughly within the con- 
ditioned understanding, and is but nature still, and grows 
up under as rigid a necessity as the tides flow or the planets 
roll. It seeks to transcend sustained substance and con- 
ditioned cause, but this abstract Absolute is still grounded 
in the substantial and bound within the causal, and utterly 
helpless without a something on which to stand, and a sup- 
plied efficiency from whence to draw. 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE UNDERSTANDING. 75 

All philosophy of nature is hopeless and helpless with- 
out the full recognition of the absolutely supernatural, for 
all exposition of nature in either its origin or its end, must 
be found in that only which is above nature. But every 
attempt to reach the supernatural and cognize the Abso- 
lute by any work of the discursive understanding, is vain. 
We may employ it upon the pure sense in the conjoining 
of space and time, but all possible constructions here will 
still leave the Infinite unconstructed, and can therefore 
never find an Absolute. We may employ it upon its own 
notions of substance and cause, but all possible attempts to 
descend to an unsustained substance, or ascend to an im- 
su23plied cause, can never stop in any one substance or cause 
which is not conditioned already in its own being, and thus 
leaving the unconditioned wholly beyond its furthest march, 
and of course the Absolute yet unattained. Or, we may 
lastly set the understanding to work upon its own func- 
tions, and analyze itself up to the primitive elements which 
enter into its original constitution, and attain its most sub- 
limated transcendental abstractions ; but we can never take 
that in the end which was not also given to us at the be- 
ginning, and from the very fact that it was originally com- 
prehended within the understanding, it must be impossible 
that it should ever become the compass for comprehending 
the understanding itself. It must ever be the included 
and can never become the absolutely conclusive. If, then, 
we have not the endowment of some distinct and superior 
function of knowing than the discursive understanding, 
we are from the nature of the case shut out from all en- 
trance upon the field where lie the problems of the Abso- 
lute. We are doomed to wander up and down through 



T6 THE IDEA OF THE AJBSOLUTE. 

the connections of nature, and can neither know nor con- 
ceive any tiling of the sujDernatural. It is certainly very 
much gained in the saving of severe but Jfruitless labor, to 
know that no conjoining and no connecting intellectual 
agency can be at all used in the philosophy of the Absolute. 
It is more gained, to know that we do not need any such 
aid. Neither Absolute time nor space, neither Absolute 
substance nor cause, neither a transcendental regulative 
Ideal Absolute, nor an Absolute thought-process, could 
bring us to the being we want. 

4. The Absoltjte as givex in the Reason. — We cease, 
then, altogether from the use of the discursive understand- 
ing in this work of attaining the Idea of the Absolute, and 
attempt nothing through completed constructions in space 
and time, nor connected judgments in substances and 
causes, nor analyses and abstractions of the function of 
judgment itself. We have a j)osition from which we see 
that all such labor must be fi'uitless, and we turn to the 
use of the reason solely; the faculty for direct and im- 
mediate insight. That we have such a faculty, distinctive 
in kind, and giving to us all our prerogatives of rationality, 
personality, and free and responsible originality, is suffi- 
ciently clear in the consciousness of its own working. In 
pure diagrams we see universal truths without any process 
of logical deductions, as that any three points in space must 
be in one and the same plane ; and that any two sides of a 
triangle must together be greater than a third side. In 
pure physics, we see that action and reaction must be 
opposite and equal ; and that compound forces must give 
their conjunct direction to motion. In pure forms we can 
see spii'itual sentiment, and thus have an ultimate standard 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE REASON. 77 

of taste in the beautiful ; and in spirit itself we can see an 
intrinsic excellency that demands for itself that it should 
be end, and not means to an end, and thus have an ulti- 
mate standard of right in the good. We will apply this 
rational insight to a series of grounds, in which may be 
detected the working of other than material forces ; and 
also to the distinctions in an ascending spiritual spontaneity 
up to the supernatural ; and in the supernatural we will de- 
tect also the point which se^Darates the conditioned from the 
unconditioned, and come directly upon the Absolute and 
Divine. 

Let it be here remarked that the Absolute we seek is 
not excluded from all relations and conditions. That which 
should be utterly without relations could not be expressed, 
and that which should be utterly without conditions could 
not be explained. It is only necessary that the relations 
and conditions should be wholly subjective, self-directed, 
and self-sustained, and bruiging with them no dependence 
upon nor amenability to any outer being. Not without 
self-relations and self-conditions, but wholly absolved from 
all dependent relationship and subjected conditioning to 
any other. We proceed then on our course to the com- 
plete attainment of such Idea of the Absolute. 

A grain of wheat may be wrapped up in the same cere- 
ments together with an Egyptian mummy. Thousands of 
years pass away, and not a moment in the long period has 
been without action neither in the living wheat nor the dead 
mummy. But to the insight of reason, a broad distinction 
is seen between these perpetuated activities. In the dead 
all the agency has been from without, and coming upon 
the subject that has been modified and changed by it; 



78 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

while in the liymg the agency has been its own, springing 
lip ever fresh within it, and resisting the outer agencies 
that would corrupt and dissolve it. The one has been the 
mechanical attrition of material forces, the other has been 
the spontaneous spring of a living energy. We seize upon 
this vital energizing, as reason gives it to us, and reserve 
it for oui' purpose in oui' future progress. 

This living energy can only act according to conditions 
imposed upon it. It cannot germinate and propagate itself 
in new grains without the air, the earth, the sunshine, and 
the moisture. It is a power put into matter, and which 
has the capabihty to control and use matter, but only ac- 
cording to conditions imposed upon it, and when these 
conditions are supplied it is still conditioned within itself, 
and must grow out after its own controlling law, "first the 
blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear," 
and this ftill corn in the ear only the " seed after its kind." 
With all the spontaneity of life, the vegetable is still bound 
in matter, and even its life is conditioned by an imposed 
law which it can by no means transcend; and thus its 
whole being is in and of nature only. 

The ox that treads out and eats the grain has all this 
living energy, with the very remarkable addition that it 
can feel itself and give back sensation for sensation. 
Through the power of sensation it can be impelled to 
locomotion, dii^ect itself in the selection of its food, and 
guide its exp.erience by rules of prudence. The insight of 
reason finds at once in this a higher grade of spontaneous 
energizing, and knovrs that here is an approach towards 
self-dii-ection. The animal can condition itself by its own 
sensations. We take then this higher idea of spontaneity 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE REASON. 79 

whicli reason has gained in animal life and hold it for our 
purpose. 

But this animal life and sensation is also in matter, and 
subjected to all the conditions of matter. Its very sentient 
life, which distinguishes it from the vegetable, is active 
only through matter and towards matter. It uses and 
seeks the material only, so that if we speak here at aU of 
spiritual being, it is of " the spirit of a beast which goeth 
downward." Its feelings are all determined for it in the 
laws imposed upon it ; and the sentient hfe can neither as- 
sume nor propagate other laws of energizing than those 
of its own kind. The animal is therefore yet wholly in 
nature. 

Man has, beside the sentient animal life, the far higher 
endowment of a rational existence. The peculiarities of 
his rational being are in the following distinctive elements. 
He can originate for himself what to him are the perfect 
ideal patterns or archetypes of that which is the beautiful, 
the true, and the good, and use these to measure, criticize, 
and estimate all that experience may offer, ^ot what is 
taken from experience, but what his own genius creates for 
him, is his criterion for testing what he shall approve and 
what disapprove. He has his own principles or standards 
of judgment within himself, and with which the material 
and sentient world has nothing to do. He has also that 
self-knowledge which determines the intrinsic excellency 
of this his rational being, and what is due to himself and 
worthy of himself in all his actions. He can thus feel the 
claims of self-respect and responsibility to his own con- 
science, and know the retributions of self-approbation or 
self-reproach according as his deeds sustain or violate the 



80 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

law which his own rational being imposes upon himself. 
Here are peculiar self-relations and self-conditions, all sub- 
sisting within the rational, and having no dependence upon 
his animal being. The rational activity is competent to 
guide and determine itself alone, both without and even 
against the animal life. 

The beautiful, the true, and the right are in the reason 
itself, and instead of copying them from nature and experi- 
ence, it judges both nature and experience by them. It 
can move itself not only without the promptings of sentient 
natm-e, but dnectly against and over them. All of nature 
may be on one side, and yet the rational can say, I ought 
and I will stand and act on the other side. It can make 
its own conscious worth and dignity its end of action, and 
exclude all other ends which nature may present from 
holding any competition with this. Here is a real sponta- 
neity, related in its activity and its law, its going forth and 
the end it is to reach, only to itself. It furnishes its own 
end and occasion for its acti\ity. Its references of agency 
are all within its own sphere, and its conditions of direction 
and result are all sell-imposed. It is self activity self-di- 
rected. It is not fr'om natui'e nor subject to nature; it is 
wholly above nature. Allied to nature as it is, even as the 
human is the combination of the animal and the rational in 
one, still the rational is not lost and absorbed in the animal, 
but ever asserts its prerogative over it. 

Take, then, this fr-ee personality; this spontaneous 
agency with its law written upon and rising out of its own 
being ; and we have made a long advance in our way to 
the Idea of the Absolute. We have found that which may 
absolve itself from all the dommation of nature and stand 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE EEASON. 81 

forth wholly supernatural. It is no product of the dis 
cursive faculty, and no attainment of analysis and abstrac- 
tion, but a cognition attained only by the direct insight of 
the reason. The eye of reason sees in the ground of the 
human, that this self-activity and self-law is the very preroga- 
tive and crown of its being, making it competent to rule 
over nature, and to live immortal with no help from nature. 

But truly an activity that goes out of its own accord, as 
is the rational in humanity, and thoroughly supernatural as 
it is, yet is it ever subject to the colliding influences of flesh 
and sense. Even when regnant over every appetite, its 
virtue is the result of perpetual watchfulness and struggle, 
and at no moment can it i;,est in serenity and be sure that 
some suppressed lust shall not suddenly spring up with 
inordinate clamors for gratification. It can never be other- 
wise than militant even if triumphant. It is in an enemy's 
country, and owes all its security to its sleepless valor. In 
fallen humanity the rational has already sold itself in bond- 
age to the animal, and basely subjected itself to nature, and 
thus conditioned itself under a load of necessities that it is 
morally helpless to throw off". " The law in the members " 
continually " wars against the law of the mind, and brings 
in subjection to the law of sin and death," and thus with 
all its liberty and responsibility and supernatural activity, 
humanity is no ground in which to look for the Absolute. 
Individually and collectively, the race is still so bound in 
the conditions of nature, either by constitutional or moral 
alliance, that it is utterly vain to hope that it shall ever be 
thoroughly absolved therefrom. 

There is an order of beings above us, brought to our 
knowledge by revelation rather than by any human expe- 
6 



82 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

rience, who in all the prerogatives of rationality, as self- 
active, self-directed, and self-rewarded, are endowed like 
ourselves. They find an ultimate end to their activity in 
the securing of their own worthiness of character, and a 
constant stimulus and directory in their own conscious self- 
responsibility. They know that they cannot stand before 
the tribunal of another, unless they can pass the scrutiniz- 
ing ordeal of their own consciences. They bring up from 
within higher and wider and more perfect ideals of beauty 
and truth, and can thus criticize and estimate whatever 
may come into their larger experience, much more accu- 
rately and comprehensively than can be effected by any of 
the human family. They thus are higher in supernatural 
endowment than ourselves. Add to all this the great dis- 
tinction that they are not incarnate, and have no subjection 
to the clogs and collisions of matter. Their reason is in- 
corporeal; or if there be a corporeity, it is what the 
inspired apostle calls " a spiritual body," "bodies celestial;" 
and thus imposing upon the activity and the spiritual sensi- 
bility none of the chafing, fretting, tempting excitements 
of our carnal nature. Nor, in the case of the great 
mass of the unfallen, have they ever subjected themselves 
to the corrosion and desperation which necessarily accom- 
pany the remorse of conscious guilt. Here then is an abso- 
lution even from an alliance with matter, and also the much 
more important consideration that they are absolved from 
all the conditions, without and within, which sin imposes. 
Here is a spontaneity more elevated, and a law of higher 
import and in clearer characters written on the heart, than 
any that the eye of reason has yet before disclosed to us. 
Surely in so wide an absolution from all outer conditions 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE REASON. 83 

we must be near the attainment of the Absolute we are 
seeking. We fix this conception of angelic completeness 
and perfection in our mind, and ask, is not here the abso- 
lutely free, good, and holy ? 

But when the eye of reason looks more narrowly and 
penetrates ftirther withiu the sphere where angel and arch- 
angel dwell, many occasions of outward restraint and con- 
ditions of imposed necessities appear that divide the angelic 
world by a broad line of demarcation from the sphere of 
the Absolute. There are ranks and orders among them, 
giving rise to the distinctive appellations of archangel, 
thrones, dominions, powers and principalities ; there are 
perhaps different kinds of being indicated by the names 
Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, and the Living Ones ; all im- 
posing the conditions of superior and inferior, prerogative 
and subordination, the tie of a class and the spirit of a 
party ; and thus opening the door to the incoming of self- 
ish spiritual passions in all the shapes of pride, envy, hate, 
jealousy, ambition, oppression, rebellion, deception, &c., and 
which have actually entered in all the malignity and men- 
dacity of the fallen spirits. The highest angel is still limited 
in rational powers and activities, and thus necessitated to 
often come upon themes of speculation, and questions of 
practical interest, where he cannot see what is truth, or 
know which is duty, and thus in the necessities of his 
finiteness he finds himself conditioned to seek light and re- 
ceive commands from one that is higher than himself He 
cannot absolve himself from these conditions, and though 
he were to be true to all the light he has, he cannot rise 
above and free himself from these necessities, but would 
be doomed to go on eternally in darkness, doubt, and fear. 



84: THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

from which nothmg that he could brmg out from hunself 
could deliver him. In his very elevation, the boundless un- 
known yet before him would leave him as really helpless as 
the lowest, whUe the magnitude of the issues to his errors 
would make him more fearfully dependent than any. The 
highest angel must be ruled by a higher, and thus con- 
ditioned to an outer authority, or, in his finiteness and 
ignorance without a higher, must be doomed to the con- 
ditions of more terrible necessities, and thus in all ways 
must he stand far below the Idea of the Absolute. 

Kow, in all self-activity and self-law there is the concep- 
tion of spirit as opposed to matter ; essence which is not 
substance ; and also is there in this involved perso^iality as 
opposed to mere animal identity ; a law both in precept 
and penalty sounding through the whole being as self- 
enacted and self-promulgated. The being is bound to be 
himself his own end, and cannot get his own or another's 
approbation if he permit himself to be made a means to 
any other's end. In humanity is such personahty, but not 
pure. The man is not only personal, but also animal as 
thing in nature. The angel is pure personality, but not 
Absolute. He must depend on the instructions and requi- 
sitions of a higher. The authority of another may send 
the sound of a higher law through the soul, and then his 
self-law will also sound through his spiritual being, that in 
no way can he be worthy of his own approbation but in 
unquestioning obedience to this higher law. To that he is 
conditioned by what is due to himself. 

What the insight of reason sees here to be necessary is 
a Supreme personahty, elevated above all possible authority 
which can come from without his own being. The inner 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE REASON. 85 

light of reason must exclude all need of instruction, and 
the intrinsic excellency must exclude all higher law. The 
Supreme Spirit is, thus, elevated above all outer authority, 
and absolved from all obligation ah extra. He is condi- 
tioned solely by what he knows in himself is due to him- 
self. The Supreme Spirit is therefore Absolute self-law and 
self-determiner. This is the Idea of the Absolute in the 
reason ; not at all the Infinite in space and time ; nor the 
unconditioned in substance and cause ; nor the purely ab- 
stract movement of thought itself; but a Supreme Spirit 
self-determined. Not without relation, for then he could 
not be expressed ; but a pure spontaneity viewed in rela- 
tion to its own known intrinsic excellency. Not without 
conditions, for he could not then come within any explana- 
tion ; but conditioned only upon the perpetual behest of 
his own dignity, or, in other words, that he do all things 
for his own glory. 

Such supreme self-determination is the very conception 
of Absolute Reason. All that belongs to nature is excluded 
from it. There is nothing to be constructed within limits, 
for it is independent of space and time ; there is nothing to 
be connected as of qualilies in a substance, or of events in 
a cause, for there is nothing to which the conceptions of 
statics and dynamics, physical substances and causes can 
have any relevancy. It is utterly supernatural, and nothing 
of the laws and conditions of nature can possess any signifi- 
cancy in reference to it. Reason is not a fact ; a some- 
what that has been made ; but from its own necessity of 
being can be conceived no otherwise than a verity which 
fills immensity and eternity. In it is self-knowledge, self- 
action, self-direction, since it contains the archetypes or 



86 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

patterns of all possibilities, and the reason for taking which 
in the determination of such only as may he worthy of its 
own acceptance ; and in this perpetual equalling and filling 
its own demands, there is necessarily perpetual self-satisfac- 
tion and self-approbation. It is unreasonable that there is 
no such end, and no such determined activity towards it, 
and certain attainment of it ; or, which is the same thing, it 
is absurd to suppose that the Absolute Reason should not 
both he and fulfil its high behests. The conception of the 
non-being of the Absolute Reason involves the absurdity of 
conceiving reason to be unreasonable. To the Absolute 
Reason there must be the known necessity for itself; the 
conscious absurdity that it should not be. 

Such Absolute Reason is manifestly a Person, having in 
himself the knowledge of all possible, and the self-deter- 
mining will to execute all his own behests. To him there 
can be no beginning nor end, for there can be no time 
when he was not ; and to him there can be no bounds, for 
there can be no place where he is not. He is unsustained 
and uncaused, for there can be no substance which he does 
not hold, and no cause which he does not originate. He is 
absolved from all dependence upon and determination by 
any being other than himself. Here is no abstraction, but 
the positive affirmation of the I Am ; he who has being and 
blessedness and exhaustless fulness in himself; even the 
being of whom it would be an everlasting absurdity to sup- 
pose that he was not, and was not blessed, and was not 
satisfied. Sense cannot j9e?'ceive Him ; discursive thought 
cannot co?iceive Him; only a spiritual discernment, the 
direct insight of reason, can behold Him. 

All the attributes which our manner of conceiving apply 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE REASON. 87 

to him participate in this characteristic of absoluteness. 
His wisdom is absolved from all dependence upon outward 
conditions. He has within himself the reason-view of aU 
thiQgs possible to be put in objective being, in the plans or 
ideal archetypes to which they must conform, and his re- 
gard to that which is worthy of his own acceptance deter- 
mines what of aU that is possible shall also be actual. He 
is absolute hberty, for the one rule of that which is ever- 
lastingly worthy of himself, and securing his own dignity 
or glory, gives a repellency and exclusion of aU ends that 
might tyrannize and enslave. He is absolutely blessed, for 
in his constant holiness and steadfast jDurpose, fixed upon 
his own glory, there is no collision or disturbance, but the 
perpetual serenity of an unruffled flow of righteousness. 
He is absolute sovereign, for while the ultimate end of his 
own dignity is ever before him and eternally directing all 
his agency, he as supreme has rightful authority and head- 
ship over aU the beings that exist beside him, and may 
rightfully command in the ends of his glory that they 
should serve him with unquestioning and constant devo- 
tion. He is, in fine, and as the most comprehensive form 
of expression, the absolute Good; good in himself as 
supremely excellent without any reference to a further end, 
and good as the source and supplier of all the good that 
any other beings possess and enjoy. He can be put to no 
use as a means to get something beyond himself; but as 
the end of all ends, all other things fulfil their measure in 
conspiring to present that to him which is in honor of him. 
The highest seraph and the humblest saint honor them- 
selves only in their devotion to his honor. 

This conception of Deity as the Absolute Good, holds 



88 THE IDEA OF THE ABSOLUTE. 

itself completely above and beyond all conceptions that 
apply to nature, and are formed in the connections of 
the discm'sive understanding. Nature has its conceived 
powers, which in combination make up all the statics and 
dynamics of physical science ; but within the Deity there 
can be conceived no action of physical forces, pushing, 
pulling, balancing, preponderating one with another. ^NTo 
combinations of substances can be here conceived, working 
theu' changes and making their qualities to pass away as 
one displaces another, which is the constant march of na- 
ture's causes and events ; but the absolute Jehovah is in 
essence as in purpose, " without variableness or the shadow 
of turning." From nature, as giving a permanent position, 
we determine all bearings and distances, and thus judge all 
places to belong to the one space ; and from the ongoing 
of nature we determine all succession and duration, and 
therefore judge all periods to belong to the one time. But 
in our conception of the absolute God we have no perma- 
nent points from whence to begin any measures of space, 
and no fixed instants from whence to begin any computa- 
tions of time. In the Idea of the Absolute we can fix no 
"here" and no "there," no "above" nor "below," no 
" outside " nor " inside," no " shape " nor " distance." Just 
as little from this Idea can we determine a "now" or 
" then," a " before " or " after." Space and time are whol- 
ly irrelative ; substance and cause have here no significancy. 
AH these apply to nature, and the Absolute is utterly su- 
pernatural. He maintains his being without resting on any 
substance ; he puts forth his agency without waiting on any 
cause. 

As thus independent of nature, he can be conceived as 



THE ABSOLUTE AS IN THE EEASON. 89 

the Creator and Guide of nature. He has the conditions 
within himself for an activity that shall put nature in ob- 
jective being, and fix the current of its flowing events to a 
channel that shall reach and consummate his pleasure. The 
moving spring to create, and to create thus and not other- 
wise, is in no constitutional want, no appetite he finds crav- 
ing within him, but solely the conscious behest of what is 
due to himself and most worthy of his own accepting. It 
is love, in the acceptation of a pure pleasure in the right, 
and not the impulse to be happy ; a regard to well-being 
and not merely to good-feeling. 

His activity may thus originate, after the eternal arche- 
types which absolute reason supplies, a material universe 
wisely and exactly adapted to his design. Reason deter- 
mines that the physical should minister to the sentient, and 
that the sentient should subserve the spiritual, and thus it 
may be anticipated that the creative work will arrange 
itself in ministering subserviences through the varied orders 
of material, vegetable, animal, and spiritual being, bringing 
out what was potentially within him, and guiding on to 
consummated issues, till the full claims of his own intrinsic 
excellency are satisfied. In such an Idea of the Absolute 
we have the conception of a God who is at once Creator 
and Governor ; Author, Guide, and Finisher of a Cosmos, 
or glorious universe, whose only reason and end is that it 
is worthy of his own acceptance and approbation. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ETERNAL PRmCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

1 . Matter is Foece ; distinguishaele as A:NTAGOOTsr 
AND Dieemptive. — Spirit must be senior to matter. • In 
the ali'eady attained Idea of an Absolute spiiit, we have 
that which is essential in all spirit. That a spirit may be 
Absolute, he must have all the conditions and resources of 
independent action and direction within his own being, and 
thus stand wholly absolved from aU limitation in any thing 
out of himself; but that a being should be spirit, absolute 
or dependent, he must have spontaneous activity or self- 
motion; an energizing which is initiative within his own 
being, and not a superinduced impulse from another. That 
such Spiiit may be rational and fi-ee, he must find his own 
ideals in himself, and be competent to work from the arche- 
types and plans of his own origiQation. He must have his 
ultimate ideas of the beautiful, the true, and the good, and 
be able to criticize and judge of all beauty, truth, and 
goodness, by his own independent standard. Spiiitual 
activity is always simple, without counteraction or j-eac- 
tion ; there is no mechanical impulse, resistance, nor fric- 
tion ; no composition nor resolution. 



MATTER AS SUBSTANTIAL EXISTENCE. 91 

But what is Matter ? The first answer comes from the 
sense. The conception as gained in experience, the earliest, 
the easiest, and thus the common conception of matter, 
is that of some dead, dry, hard substance, given in mass of 
a larger or smaller volume. It is found divisible into parts, 
and we readily conceive that the largest bodies may be 
made up of small particles, and in our analysis of these 
particles we bring them into atoms which will not admit 
that we should further subdivide them. We thus besiin 
with that into which we have analyzed our experience, 
and conceive of matter as originally existent in indivisible 
atoms, and that by various conjunctions of the atoms all 
bodies are formed. In all cases, whether as atoms or in 
the mass, matter is for the sense a lifeless, powerless, mo- 
tionless substance; utterly inert, except as something is 
done to it, and in itself only existing to occupy and cumber 
the place it fills. 

When matter is subjected to a nicer scrutiny in experi- 
ment, the conception is more extended, but not at all cor- 
rected. It is observed that matter in bodies is perpetually 
altering its qualities, and though often by slow gradations, 
yet in all cases, matter is moving from present modes of 
existence and transmuting itself to other forms. Liquids 
are congealed or pass off into vapor ; fermentation carries 
its changes through the successive saccharine, vinous, and 
acetous stages ; the atoms crumble and the hardest bodies 
become disintegrated, and these again are made the ele- 
ments of new compounds ; Hving agencies are assimilating 
and building up new bodies, and then the life goes out and 
the body again dissolves and their elements are scattered ; 
and colors, densities, magnitudes, indeed the qualities of 



92 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

every sense, glide from one into another, and nothing 
abides permanently. All things flow. "We sometimes 
speak as if one portion of matter moved or changed other 
portions, and that thus matter was conceived as itself 
active in producing its changes; but a partial reflection 
again qualifies the language, and we speak of powers and 
forces given to matter, and that the imparted force and 
not the dead matter does all the work and makes all the 
changes. The highest conceptions of the sense will there- 
fore be, that matter itself is not cause except as a causal 
efficiency is given to it; that the forces and powers of 
nature are superinduced upon matter, and are something 
other than the matter; matter is mere inertia^ and all 
changes are wrought in it and not by it. 

But when such a conception is subjected to the insight 
of reason it is found utterly empty, and that nothing can 
be made of it but a mere negation. To attempt applying 
it to any use is an absurdity. What can this passive and 
inert existence do f At rest it cannot move, and moving 
it cannot rest, without a force supplied to it. It can nei- 
ther change nor resist change, neither combine nor dis- 
solve, neither sustain nor press, except as power is given to 
it to do all the work. Put it where we may it is utterly a 
caput-mortuum^ neither acting nor reacting; the force 
given to it does all things for it, while the dead-head itself 
is incapable of any use, or of becoming a means to any end. 
How can it be Jcnown f If any sense receive an impression 
and thereby a sensation, out of which the intellectual action 
brings a distinct and definite perception, that impression 
and sensation must have been induced, not at all by the 
dead matter, but by some efficiency put into matter, and it 



MATTER AS SUBSTANTIAL EXISTENCE. 93 

must be this and not the matter that becomes object in 
perception. What then can it he ? It cannot exists for it 
cannot stand out in any sense ; it cannot subsist^ for it can- 
not stand under any quahty ; it is wholly a negation, and if 
we should attempt to conceive of it in any way as object, 
it would be the absurdity of an object that could not be 
put before any organ of sense. 

We must, therefore, wholly renounce such a conception 
of matter, for indeed upon rational examination it will be 
found to be an impossible conception, a mere negation in 
the thought. Let us, however, keep this force^ which we 
have supposed to be supplied to matter, and which we have 
found in such case must work all the mutations that occur 
in matter, carefully subjected to a rational insight, and 
determine whether indeed this force that does all that is 
done is not matter itself. Simple activity is spiritual ac- 
tivity, and has nothing in it that can awaken the thought 
of force ; and it is only as it meets some opposing action 
and encounters an antagonist that we come to have the 
notion of force. In all push and pull there is counteraction, 
complex action, action and reaction, while simple spiritual 
agency can never be made a conception of physical exist- 
ence. It cannot be thought as taking and holding any 
fixed position ; it cannot become a permanent and have a 
" where " that it might be conceived to pull from, nor a 
" there " that it might be conceived to push to. It could 
not be determined to any time nor to any place, for it has 
no constant from whence the determination might begin 
nor where it might end. When, however, the conception 
is that of simple action in counteraction, an activity that 
works from opposite sides upon itself, we have in it at once 



94: THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

the true notion of force. From the difficulty of clearly 
apprehending counteraction or antagonism in a single ac- 
tivity, as always acting in opposite directions upon oy 
against itself, and which must be the true conception, for 
the notion is that of one source for the antagonism, it will 
be more readily taken and equally available in result, if we 
here, and generally through the work, conceive of two 
simple activities meeting each other and reciprocally hold- 
ing back, or resting against, each other, and thus of the 
two making a third thing at the Hmit of meeting which is 
unlike to either. In neither of the two activities can there 
be the notion of force, but at the point of antagonism force 
is generated and one new thing comes from the synthesis 
of the two activities. To distinguish this from other forces 
hereafter found we call it antagonist force. In this, posi- 
tion is taken, and there is more than the idea of being, 
which the simple activities each have ; there is being stand- 
ing out, an EXISTENCE ; being in re, reality, a thing. 

Let, then, an indefinite number of such positions con- 
tiguous to each other be conceived as so taken and occu- 
pied, and a space will thereby be filled and holden; an 
aggregate force will maintain itself in a place ; and a 
ground is given on which other things may rest. A sub- 
stantial reality here exists. This antagonism may be con- 
ceived to be of any degree of intensity, and the substantial 
ground will hold its place with the same amount of persist- 
ency, and stand there permanent, impenetrable, and real. 
Nothing else may come into its place until it has itself been 
displaced. It is not hiertia, but a vis inertim ; a force 
resting against itself, and thus holding itself in place. It 
rests, because it has intrinsically an equilibrating resistance. 



MATTER AS SUBSTANTIAL EXISTENCE. 95 

But this conception of antagonism alone, though fully- 
adequate to give substantial matter, will not be found ade- 
quate to give such forms and modes of matter as a universe 
needs for the rational ends designed in it. There will 
need to be varied substance ; combinations and resolutions ; 
perpetual changes and processes through successive stages ; 
and thus our very primitive idea of matter must compre- 
hend more than the idea of pure antagonist force, even that 
which may dissolve and become a combination with pure 
antagonism. We conceive then of an activity going out in 
exactly the reverse process of our antagonism, even a begin- 
ning in the same limit of the meeting simple activities and 
working on each side away from the limit ; a throwing of 
simple activities in opposite directions from the limit of 
contact. Not a counteracting and resisting, but a divel- 
lent and disparting activity ; not an antagonistic, but here- 
after known as distinctively a diremptive movement. Such 
an activity could not be conceived as space-filling of itself 
Wherever the limit in which there might be conceived the 
contact of two simple activities should be, the diremjDtive 
movement would be away from that limit on each side, and 
thus a space-vacating and not a space-filling activity. The 
diremptive movement alone would be a disparting and 
going away of the activities from each other, and leavmg a 
void. But if this diremptive movement be conceived as at 
tne very limit and point of contact of the antagonism, the 
antagonist activity working toward itself in the limit, and 
the diremptive activity working from itself out of the limit, 
then must the diremptive movement on each side encounter 
the antagonist movement, and the simple diremptive activi- 
ty going out on one side from the limit will meet the sim- 



96 THE ETERNAL PEIKCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

pie antagonist activity on tlie same side coming in to the 
limit, and these two simples of the opposite kinds of forces 
must make a new comiteraction among themselves. And 
equally so with the going out and the coming in of the 
opposite kinds of foi'ces in their simple activities on the 
other side of the limit, the one must encounter the other 
and engender a new counteraction among themselves on 
this other side. The result thus must be that while the 
diremptive activity disparts and loosens the antagonism, 
the antagonist activity on the other hand restrains and 
binds in the divellency, and thus the diremption can neither 
go off wholly on either side and leave the limit void, nor 
the antagonism come up from each side and make the limit 
full, but both antagonism and diremption meet in the limit 
and make a third thing, which may be called indifferently 
an antagonist force loosed, or a diremptive force fixed. 

The pure forces in their contact in the simple limit may 
be known as units under the term of molecules^ or molecu- 
lar forces ; the working to the limit constituting an antago- 
nist molecular force, and the working away from the hmit 
constitutmg a diremptive molecular force. The combina- 
tion of these forces, in their joint interaction making a new 
compound as a third thing unlike to either alone, may be 
known as also a unit, constituting a material atom^ and 
which may further on be known as a chemical atom or 
molecule. Our conception of matter must therefore be of 
this combination of distinguishable forces, though we shall 
find it convenient for the more clear apprehension of the 
principles of the universe to follow out the workings of 
each distinctly and separately. 

2. Ckeation. — In the manner here used creation has 



CEEATION, AS OEIGINATION OF MATTER. 97 

the meaning of origination ; the putting forth of something 
where before there was nothing, and this something thus 
set forth a new thing which had not previously an exist- 
ence. It does not involve the impossible thought of exist- 
ence coming out of a void of all being. The axiom, " out 
of nothing, nothing comes," is to be taken as universally 
conclusive. There can be no creation without a Creator ; 
and as the creation we now seek to apprehend is that of 
the beginning of existence, or outer being, the Creator 
must himself be conceived as the uncreated ; he who ever 
^5, and yet who never exists. His being is never objective ; 
expressed in form; standing out in definite proportions; 
but purely spiritual, and known only in that supernatural 
light to which no mortal can approach. This ever invisible 
Creator puts forth a material creation in objective palpable 
manifestation, which only in his putting forth began its 
existence. How shall we attain to a rational Idea of such 
creation ? The intention here is simply to attain the con- 
ception of originated existence, leaving the detail of the 
completed genesis of the universe to many subsequent 
separate paragraphs. 

With the distinct conception of force as the essence of 
all material being clearly in mind, we seek now to appre- 
hend how, where force is not, it may begin to be. Force 
cannot come from utter emptiness. ISTor is it now to be 
apprehended as produced from some antecedent force, and 
thus a propagation or production from some force already 
created. Forces may change their modes of manifestation 
indefinitely, and this will be but the progressive develop- 
ment or successive births and growths in nature itself; but 
we now want the conception of nature's origin. The great 



98 THE ETEENAL PEmCIPLES OP THE UNIVERSE. 

difficulty to a clear apprehension is removed by keeping a 
steady discrimination between the functions and cognitions 
in the discursive understanding and those in the compre- 
hensive reason. To the understanding nothing can be con- 
ceived as literally beginning to be. That which is must 
have been a production or outgrowth from that which be- 
fore was, and all new things are only some changes in the 
modes of old things. The whole function of the under- 
standing is to connect in judgments, and the subject must 
already be given in which to connect the new predicate. 
The predicate must be thought as akeady belonging to the 
subject. K there is a new quality, it cannot be viewed as 
then a thing newly originated, but a change in some sub- 
stance that had before existed ; and if there is a new event, 
it cannot be thought as then having its origin, but only as 
coming out from some old cause in a new mode of exist- 
ence. The water following the ice as dissolved is not new, 
nor the vapor as following the water, but the new predicate 
is ever from some old subject. For any thing absolutely 
to begin to be, in the discursive judgments of the under- 
standing, would be the absurdity of attemptmg to connect 
with no medium ; of thinking in judgments with no subject 
for the predicate. To this faculty, that which is must ever 
be the product of something that before was ; a change of 
some old existence into a new mode of manifestation. !N'a- 
ture thus, from first to last, goes onward the same, with no 
originations nor annihilations, but only a perpetual passing 
of the same substances into new modifications. 

But when we keep the reason-idea of spiritual agency, 
as spontaneous activity self-directed, we shall have an ut- 
terly new kind of cause, viz. : a cause originating or caus- 



CEEATIONj AS ORIGINATION OF MATTER. 99 

ing to be from itself, and not a cause conditioned or caused 
to cause from something back of itself It is activity in 
liberty, which can make a beginning from conditions within 
its own being. We have in this conception no impossi- 
bilities, nor absurdities of the last-first, in affirming that 
we may intelhgently apprehend how an utterly new thing 
can absolutely begin existence. With all rational spirits 
there is such capacity of initial causality, and thus of all 
free and responsible beings, we affirm that their personal 
acts are their own origination, and can no more be transfer- 
red to any other person than their separate identity. Man 
and angel can, in this sense, truly create. Their good or 
bad deeds are of their own origination. Whatever another 
agent may do in throwing his own conditions upon them, 
he does not originate their acts within them. 

But man cannot originate new forces, and thus man 
cannot create matter. He is himself incarnate; utterly 
merged in matter; and can thus put out no act that shall 
immediately meet another act in counteraction, but his 
every act of energizing must first encounter the forces in 
which he is incorporated. His activity meets forces, and 
moves matter already created, but his activity cannot, 
with nothing between, meet itself in counteraction, and 
take a new position, and thus begin a new space-filling 
operation. Yea, if we were to conceive of angels as pure 
spirits, activities without corporeity, and thus competent to 
make one act counteract and hold another in position, yet 
these counter activities could only be within their own 
subjective spheres, and condition their o^ti conscious ac- 
tivities, and could be no forces to condition other agencies 
which could not bring themselves within their subjective 



100 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

spheres. Thus, neither man nor angel can be conceived as 
competent to create force that shall be objective, real, sub- 
stantial, and impenetrable to another agency. 

But Tvith the conception of a Supreme Absolute Spirit, 
all these diJficulties are excluded. He can begin action, 
he can put action in counteragency with no forces inter- 
vening, and whatever positions he may thus take and hold 
by permanent forces, though subjective to himself, or with- 
in his own sphere of agency, they may be objective to all 
other being, for aU being will be alike subjective to Him ia 
whom all live and move and have their being. Take then 
the Idea of the Absolute, already attained, and within the 
pure spiritual agency of his being there is no force ; no 
antagonism or counteragency. Simple spiritual activity 
takes no positions, fiUs no space, puts within itself no lim- 
its from whence we can begin to determine places and 
periods. Spaces and times are here wholly irrelevant, and 
as there is no fixing in place and moving in successions, so 
nothing of impenetrable substances and series of physical 
causes can be thought as lying and working on in the God- 
head. But in the knowledge he has of his own supreme 
excellency of bemg, there is an end in his own dignity and 
glory ever before him. He knows what is due to himself, 
and nothing can intervene that he should not be true to 
himself. " He remaineth faithful, he cannot deny himself" 
He sees that it behooves him, as a right consciously due to 
himself, to manifest himself in creation. Under such ethi- 
cal behest, and not at all before the impulse of any con- 
stitutional craving, God arises to the work of creation, and 
becomes a beginner and Author of an existence which 
before was not. 



CEEATION, AS ORIGINATION OF MATTER. 101 

Solely from the reason, and not from any want as if he 
too had a nature, God puts his simple activity in counter 
agency. He makes act meet and hold act, and in this 
originates an antagonism which constitutes force ; a new 
thing; a something standing out for objective manifesta- 
tion, and holding itself in position as a reality distinct from 
his own subjective simplicity. This force fixes itself in 
position ; holds itself at rest ; and so far from being inert, 
its very existence is a vis inertice^ or a force actively hold- 
ing itself still. Combined with this antagonist activity, in 
the same limit of counteraction, is the diremptive activity 
that works conversely to the antagonism, and which 
though hereafter to be considered distinctly, may now for 
the present be apprehended as in unity, and the antago- 
nism and diremption to be the one agency of the Absolute 
Spirit in one and the same limit of their action ; the antago- 
nism working each way into the limit and the diremption 
working each way out from the limit, and both making in 
their interaction a compound material substance, which 
has the disparting of the antagonis'm in the diremption 
between the counterworking activities, and the fixing of 
the diremption by the antagonism on each side of the 
divellent activities. There is thus the combmation of three 
molecular forces in one limit — the diremption works each 
way out from the limit, and thus counterworks with an 
antagonism coming up each way in the hmit, and thereby 
two antagonisms and one diremptive force equihbrate each 
other and fill and hold the space they have taken. Any 
considerable extent of space so filled, a cubic inch, or a 
cubic mile, is a creation of matter palpable to the senses, 
impenetrable and substantial. The force in every position 



102 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

becomes a force reciprocally acting through the whole 
place filled, and is at once subject to its own inherent laws 
and bound on its course of necessitated successive develop- 
ment. It is a nature^ having already in it a conditioned 
and predetermined series of growths which must come out 
in their own order. 

The simplicity of the spiritual works on still undis- 
turbed within the Deity, for no conditions of the material 
reach back of the point of counter-agency. In matter is 
force, or the physical, and all its necessitated efficiencies 
work downward in their destined sequences, but above 
matter all is still spiritual, supernatural, the free ongoings 
of spontaneous activity directed upon the end of its own 
dignity or glory. The physical cannot push itself back 
and hinder, tire, or in any way interrupt the activities of 
the spiritual ; and the spiritual cannot bring itself down, 
and reveal its agency amid the statics of the substantial or 
the dynamics of the causal, and thus appear on the same 
theatre with the physical phenomena, but the natural and 
the supernatural spheres are forever separated in the limit 
where simple agencies in counteraction become a new 
thing that holds its place, and works its way, as a physical 
force necessitating its products. The creation of the 
material is from God ; its genesis is in him ; its perpetua- 
tion and sustentation is from the continual going out of 
his simple activity ; but this material is not God, nor at all 
competent to rise from its imposed conditions into the 
place of the Absolute. The Logos, or divine working 
word, is in the world ; is the life and light of the world ; 
and yet he was in the beginning with God, and ever is 
God, while the world is not he but his creature. 



SPACE AND TIME DETEEMINED. 103 

3. The Determination oe Space and Time. — There 
are many kinds of space and of time, and one may apper- 
tain to one person and another to another person, and that 
which has pertinency to one may be wholly impertinent 
and irrelevant to the other, and if left to their own sensible 
experience, or the deductions of the logical understanding, 
neither one could determine his own spaces and times to 
belong to one space and one time, nor that the spaces and 
times of both belonged to one common space and one com- 
mon time. These very significant propositions are usually 
wholly overlooked, and most persons make no question of 
any distinctions in kind, in spaces and times, and thus ap- 
prehend nothing of the difficulty or the importance of the 
determination of spaces and times. A few obvious but 
disregarded facts presented carefully to the insight of rea- 
son will very fully convince us that our experience, or our 
logical judgments, have nothing to do in determining space 
and time, and that such determination can only be made 
by fixed forces, in position, and their perpetual changes in 
succession. 

There may be a morbid affection or some unnatural 
distortion given to the eye, which shall induce fantastic 
colored spots even when the eye is closed. With such 
phantasms, a space is also given in which they appear, but 
so soon as the colored spots vanish, the space in which they 
were goes out with them. If on another day other such 
phenomena occur, a space again is given in which they 
have their different places. Now neither the experience 
nor the judgment can determine that these spaces are the 
same, or that they belong to one and the same whole of all 
space. They came with their colored spots and went with 



lOi THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF TEE TTNIYEESE. 

them, and eacli space is in the experience as distinct fi'om 
the other as the spots in one are distinct from those in the 
other. Two persons may have such phenomena, but the 
spots and the spaces are for each person his own, and one 
can no more say the space he has is the same that the other 
has, than that his spots are the same. There are here 
many different spaces. 

So when I construct any pure diagram, as a triangle or 
a circle, that pure figure has a space in which it is given, 
and when the figure drops from the ioner consciousness, 
the space in which it was is lost also. I may successively 
make and lose many such constructions, but I shall always 
have and lose their spaces with them. Two persons, or 
any number of persons, may be constructing their pure 
figures, and they wiU aU have their spaces with their diar 
grams, but neither the one can determine all his spaces to 
belong to one whole space, nor the whole number of per- 
sons determine that all their spaces belong to one sj^ace in 
common. Much less could any determine that the spaces 
in the affected organ, as before, and those m the inner con- 
sciousness, as now, belonged to one space. 

Thus, again, of any mirror ; there is a space whenever 
there is a reflected image; but if the mirror reflect no 
image, it vn\l give no space. The spaces come and go with 
the reflections. A cloud passes over the face of the lake 
which had mirrored the heavens and the objects on its 
borders, and the space and the images go together, and 
when the cloud has gone the images and then- space again 
come. Xo experience nor discursive understanding can 
make the different mirrored-spaces stand together in one 
space, nor all spaces into one whole of all space. 



SPACE AND TIME DETEKMINED. 105 

Just SO also of time. I may be absorbed in mental re- 
flection and take no note of outer successions, and I shall 
be conscious that a time has been passing in that my inward 
thoughts and reflections have been succeeding each other. 
I may again arouse myself to a consciousness of outer 
objective successions or may have an interval of sleep, and 
afl:erwards another experience of reflection or musing medi- 
tation may occur, with its consciousness that a time is pass- 
ing though I take no notice of any outward ongoing. Here 
will be difierent musing-times, but no experience nor logi- 
cal judgment can affirm that they belong to one time. 
Two persons may so meditate in separate absorption of all 
outer consciousness, and each will have his owm musing- 
time because each will have his own inward successions, 
but neither nor both together can put their distinct times 
into one time. 

Or, again, one may dream, and after an interval of deep 
sleep or waking consciousness may dream again, and with 
each dream there will be its own dreaming-time, but no 
experience or discursive thought can put the difierent 
dreaming-times into one time. Two or more persons may 
so dream, and each have his own time in his dream, but no 
one nor all together can connect their separate dreaming- 
times into one common time for all. How much less shall 
any one make all musing-times and dreaming-times to con- 
nect in one common time. The times are given in refer- 
ence to the successions which pass in the inward conscious- 
ness, and if there are alternations of conscious movement 
with suspensions of all movement in unconsciousness, the 
interrupted experience can in no way join itself into one, 
5* 



106 THE ETEENAIi PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

nor can any connections of the logical judgment bridge 
over the chasms. 

Even so with all objective spaces and times ; the experi- 
ence and the logical thought can never make them to be in 
one space and one time. I look upon some broad land- 
scape and determine aU its distinct objects relatively to 
each other, and make the whole to belong together in one 
place, as a space which contains them. But if I am re- 
moved in my sleep to another position, and I awake agaia 
and look upon another landscape, I can again make all its 
objects to belong to one place as a space containing them ; 
but I can neither by experience nor judgment put these 
two spaces together into one space, and say which direction 
the one is from the other, nor determine that the two 
belong indeed to the one whole of all space, for neither my 
experience, nor my logical understanding, as an induction 
from all that experience gives, can determine that there is 
any one whole of all space. And two or more persons may 
each have their landscapes with their different objects de- 
termined in their relative positions in one place as a space 
containing each landscape, but neither one nor all these 
persons could, from their experience or their logical think- 
ing, determine that the spaces which held all their land- 
scapes, respectively, belonged to one space, nor even that 
there was any one space which contained all spaces. 

And so also I experience a series of successive changes 
in surrounding objects, as the passing of different shadows 
and changes of color over the landscape, and I can deter- 
mme them in their relative periods in the one time of dura- 
tion for them all. And if I am in unconsciousness stopped 
from all experience, and again watch the changes of a 



SPACE AND TIME DETERMINED. 107 

landscape in some other conscious experience, I can put all 
the occurrences again into their relative periods during the 
one time of their successions, but if this last also be cut off 
from all succession in unconsciousness, I cannot say, either 
from my experience or my logical thinking, that these two 
times of landscape-changes are in one time, or which is be- 
fore and which after the other. The chasms of uncon- 
sciousness sunder the continuance of successions, and when 
the experience has been cut off from both completely, they 
stand each in their own time, and nothing is given to per- 
mit the connecting of the two times into one and determin- 
ing their order of occurrence. And if two or more persons 
had their conscious objective successions, they would each 
have their times, and their determined relative occurrences 
in their times respectively, but neither one nor all could 
put their respective times into one, nor show any relative 
order of occurrence in reference to them. 

Each man's spaces and times are only his own spaces 
and times, and where they have been disjoined in his expe- 
rience, his discursive thought can never put them together, 
and much less can any one man put all the spaces and times 
of all men into one space and one time. So it must ever 
be, when all men are left only to experience or the deduc- 
tions of the logical understanding to determine space and 
time ; they can never bring then* own distinct spaces and 
times into one space and time, nor ever possess one com- 
mon space and one common time between them. Experi- 
ence gives them many different spaces and times, and no 
judgment from experience could put the different spaces 
into one space nor the different times into one time. Each 
man's places and periods would be for him just as he 



108 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

constructed them, and he could determine nothing for an- 
other. 

But the insight of the reason finds at once, that if there 
be one substantial existing object that holds its permanent 
position for the same man through all his subjective states 
of consciousness, this will enable him to determine all 
places from this one place ; and if this one substantial object 
be common to all men, it will enable all men to determine 
for themselves one common space. The one man, and all 
men, can construct bearings and distances from one and 
the same position, and thus each man and all men may 
determine one and the same space. And also, if this sub- 
stantial object vary its phenomena successively, it will 
enable each man and all men to come to the same succes- 
sions, and determine one time for each man's times and all 
men's times. It is from this necessary principle of space 
and time-determinations that in Rational Psychology we 
demonstrate the existence of a real substantial imiverse 
against all Sensationalism and Idealism. All men have the 
determination of one common space and one common time, 
but this could not possibly be, except upon their com- 
munion with the same substantial nature both in its perma- 
nence and orderly successions. 

We thus know that when as yet nature had not been 
put out in objective manifestation, nature's place and time 
could have no determinate significancy. If the present 
nature of things be annihilated, the determinate places and 
periods of nature would vanish with nature itself, and if 
there were minds to have inward experiences, they might 
construct inward figures and have subjective spaces, and 
limit successive movements and have subjective periods'. 



SPACE AND TBIE DETEEMTNED. 109 

but each mind only for itself, and could never put each his 
own places and periods into one space and one time, nor 
bring all men's spaces to one common space, nor all men's 
times to one common time. And should another nature 
of things be created, it would come up in its own deter- 
minate space and time, and no understanding could con- 
nect it in the same one space and one time of the nature 
which had been annihilated. All minds must be able to go 
to one and the same substantial nature of things for the 
determmation of their spaces and times, or they can never 
determine that they have one common space and one com- 
mon time. 

When, therefore, we conceive of an Absolute Creator, 
setting his simple activity in counteragency and taking a 
position, and in balanced antagonism holding that position 
permanently, we have in it all that is conditional for space 
and time determination. In the simple spiritual agency 
we can determine nothing of space or time, for there is no 
fixed point from whence to determine direction and dis- 
tance, and no fixed instant from whence to determine 
successions and durations. But m the genesis of a force 
there is a determinate place taken, and in the developed 
progress of its working according to its inherent conditions 
there is a determinate succession, and each man may deter- 
muie here his own places by the one space, and his own 
times by the one time, and all men may here determine 
one space and one time in common for them. While each 
man's subjective spaces and times are still his own, and no 
other mind can come in communion with them, the one 
substantial space-filling and time-enduring force is common 
to all for the same space and time determination. 



110 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

4. M4TTEE MUST IMPRESS ITSELF UPON THE SeNSES. — If 

matter were conceived as wholly inert, it would be utterly- 
inexplicable how it should affect any sense, and its qualities 
become perceived through any organ. Whatever was 
done must be by some imparted force, and that would give 
the whole impression, while the dead matter would be en- 
tirely superfluous. As it could affect nothing so the senses 
could perceive nothing of it. But when we conceive of 
the substantial matter itself as a force filhng certain places 
in space, we may readily apprehend how the senses must 
-be impressed by it, and the sensations induced be brought 
up into the light of consciousness. 

The sense can never go back of the sensation and deter- 
mine any thing of the substantial being which gives the 
sensation, for the sensation in the organ is the only content 
or material out of which the perception is made. The 
substance affects the organ, and the intellect distinguishes 
and defines this affection in the organ, and this only ap- 
pears, or becomes a phenomenon. We can never perceive 
the substance, and only the peculiar manner in which the 
substance has affected the organ, and hence the sense can 
only give us the qualities of things and not the things in 
themselves. 

But the insight of reason penetrates the act of percep- 
tion itself, and comprehends the sense in its complete func- 
tion, thoroughly. The organ must in some way be affected 
from without itself, and this affection induces the sensation 
within itself, and as this has its own peculiar modification 
according to the nature of the organ affected, so that must 
be distinguished by the intellectual agency and the pecu- 
liar quality determiued, and this determined quality must, 



MATTEE AS SENSIBLY PERCEPTIBLE. Ill 

"by a still further intellectual action, be wholly defined and 
the quantity of the quality fully perceived, whether in 
space, time, or amount. The qualities perceived are but 
the modes in which the substantial reahty impresses itself 
upon, and thus manifests itself in the sense. And with 
this conception of a space-filling force, it is quite competent 
for the understanding to trace its necessary comiections in 
any organ, and thus attain the clear idea of the functions 
of the sense through all its kinds and varieties of percep- 
tion. The inherent energy in matter itself is sufficient to 
impress itself tipon the senses, and make its qualities to be 
perceived. We will go through the senses in the order 
that the impressions will be most readily apprehended. 

Tlie Touch. — The essential being of matter is force, or 
counteragency, and it is the nature of this, in its balanced 
action, to hold itself permanently in the position it takes. 
The organ of touch, here anticipated as already existing, is 
the finger or some fleshy part of the body, and is thus itself j 
like all matter, a composition of space-filling forces which 
hold themselves permanent in their place, and moreover 
the finger possesses a vital and sentient activity which 
penetrates every part, and capacitates it for communion 
with the intellectual agency which must distinguish and 
define its content. The organ, therefore, has its own 
place, and its conditioned nature to retain its position, and 
its medium of communication with the intellectual and con- 
scious spirit. 

When this organ, then, is made to meet any matter, 
either by invading the place of another portion, or by being 
invaded itself by another, there must supervene in the con- 
tact a reciprocal pressure, and which may be more nicely 



112 THE ETEENAL PKINCIPLES OF THE XTNIYEESE. 

regulated by the voluntary action of tlie living muscles, 
and by this impression an affection or proper sensation is 
given to the vitalized material organ. The matter touched 
may be made solid by any different degrees of intensity in 
its constituting forces, and may also have its surface of any 
variety of shape and outline, and which must determine the 
accordant impression upon the organ ; and when this is dis- 
tinguished and defined by the intellectual action, the per- 
ception of the quality, as hardness, roughness, weight, &c., 
will be perfected. This impenetrable space-filling force 
may impress the sense of touch with any conceivable degree 
of resistance, and must thus give to itself in the perception 
the like degree of intensity as quality. 

The impression is, in this sense, made only by actual 
contact, and thus no condition is given whereby to deter- 
mine distance from the organ; but relative distances, as 
extension in space and outhne of figure, may readily be de- 
termined by a continuous application of the organ of touch 
to the resisting matter. So far as there is a continuous 
progressive contact, either by the organ moving over the 
matter or the matter moving on the organ, the occasion 
for determining extension, shape, and size is given, and the 
sense can thus perceive all the quahties of length, breadth, 
thickness, and complete shape which the matter may 
possess. 

In all the above cases a conscious measure of muscular 
pressure has been necessary to the perception, but a much 
lighter contact with the opposing matter in a slight friction 
upon it, will give phenomena that are considered rather as 
sensations awakened in ourselves than as qualities possessed 
by the matter, and it is only in such a degree of intensity 



MATTER AS SENSIBLY PERCEPTIBLE. 113 

that the matter occasioning it forces itself upon our atten- 
tion, that we can refer the phenomenon as quahty to the 
matter itself. Thus with the feeling of irritation, titulation, 
and gentle warmth or coolness, when slight, we say we feel 
the sensations ; but when more intense, and the thought of 
the matter occasioning it obtrudes itself, we say the body 
feels rough, harsh, hot or cold, and we apply the sensation 
at once as qualities of the matter. 

It is hereiQ manifest that nothing further is necessary 
to conceive, as the inherent essence and constitution of 
matter, than a force filling and holding its position in space, 
and all the possible qualities which the touch can perceive 
must be very intelhgently occasioned by it. 

The Taste. — ^All matter in a mass, larger or smaller, is a 
compound of the elemental forces each in its own position, 
and thus each point of force may be taken to be a molecule 
of matter. These must also be more or less intense or 
must have varied directions and combinations given to 
their antagonism, and thus the molecules of matter must 
be of great variety. The atomic existence and varied com- 
position may give occasion to all the varied forms of matter 
in what is known of earths, metals, salts, alkalis, acids, &c. 

The tongue, also, as the organ of taste, with the sur- 
rounding parts of the mouth, is here anticipated as having 
its composition of corpuscles, and the whole vivified and 
sentient with that living activity which has assimilated and 
incorporated them. This organ, from its own construction, 
is hereby fitted to take on the peculiar sensations given 
when the sapid matter is in contact with it. The condi- 
tions for the sensation of taste have this peculiarity in dis- 
tinction from the touch, that there must be not merely 



114 THE ETERNAL PEmCEPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

contact, but a dissolving of the compound body, and the 
bringing of the separate molecules upon the organ in their 
own particular degree and variety of pungency. These 
different particles give occasion to different sensations, and 
when these are intellectually distinguished and defined 
there will be all the conditions for complete perception. 

The Smell. — The living assimilating process builds up 
also an organ, for attaining the different odors by which 
the material world is qualified, in the nose. Penetrated as 
it is with sentient life, it becomes competent to receive the 
impressions which the efliuvia from surrounding bodies may 
make upon it. 

The essential elements of matter in the primitive forces 
which compose it may be more or less intensely held in 
position, and more or less firmly adherent, and thus some 
portions of matter may be permanently adhesive and must 
therefore be inodorous ; other matter may be volatile and 
admit that the various mechanical agencies that surround it 
may readUy force off some of the elemental particles and 
thus effectually surround itself with an effluvia from its own 
substance. The tension of the particles, and the energy 
and direction with which they must be thrown upon the 
organ will determine the impressions made, and thus from 
either the conditions in the effluvia itself or those of its 
transmission to the organ, there must be sensations of all 
varieties, giving occasion for distinctly and definitely per- 
ceiviug all kinds of odors. The aroma may so stimulate 
and excite as to awaken the most regahng fragrance, or an 
effluvia may be present that shall give the most foetid and 
offensive smells. 

The organ is not in this sense necessarily brought in 



MATTER AS SENSIBLY PEECEPTIBLE. 115 

contact with the body of matter itself, as in touch and 
taste, but only in contact with some of the particles sent 
off from the body, and thus there can be no opportunity 
given for constructing shape and outline by the smell, and 
only the capacity for vaguely estimating distance and di- 
rection from the degrees of intensity with which these par- 
ticles may strike upon and impress the sense. A sufficient 
condition is however here supphed for all the perceptions 
that can be gained through the sense of smell. 

Sound. — ^With a sentient organ like the ear, there is a 
capability to receive impressions from material nature of an 
entirely different kind than those in touch, taste, or smell. 
The organ itself is expected to stand wholly and often 
quite distantly separated from the sonorous body, and no 
part of the material substance is itself to flow off and meet 
the organ. A medium must be supplied in the elastic 
space-filling force which constitutes the air, and which sur- 
rounds both the organ and the sonorous body, and fills the 
whole space between them. An ear in vacuo must be 
without sound. The sonorous point is at the ear, but the 
condition given for the sound may be at a point very far 
removed from the ear, and the impulse from the body 
which puts the elastic medium in undulation must make the 
communication from the body to the organ, and thus all 
the conditions for the appropriate impression and sensation 
are supphed. 

The stroke which starts the impulse and the sohdity 
of the body stricken, and the rarer or denser medium 
through which the communication is made, must all modify 
the sensation and determine the variety of the sound. It 
must thus be louder or weaker, and modified through 



116 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

manifold tones which have a higher or lower pitch. The 
impulse at the starting point in the sonorous body must 
perpetuate itself through aU the media, and the impression 
must be determined by aU the peculiarities given in the 
whole process. In this way an occasion is manifest for all 
possible sounds through the matter made of compounded 
space-filling forces. And not merely the direct impulses, 
but the rebounding and reflected waves from some inter- 
vening sonorous body, will occasion all that is to determine 
the perception of the echoes which may accompany some 
original sounds. All the laws of acoustics are intelli- 
gently read in the nature of these space-filling forces. 

Vision. — With the complicated and nicely adapted 
organism of the eye given in conception, it may be a clear 
insight of the reason that matter, as a space-filling force, 
must give aU the conditions necessary for vision. 

Like the ear, the eye also is adapted to receive im- 
pressions, not directly from contact with the object, but 
through the medium of that which may lie between the 
organ and the object. This intervening medium may be a 
direct transmission from the object, or some force that 
shall put in oscillation an elastic fluid lying between the 
organ and object. What this force is, wiU hereafter be 
determined, but it is sufficient here to have the conception 
of a space, about an organ of vision and an object, fiUed up 
with contiguous antagonisms, and which may be put m 
motion and made to affect the organ as the movement 
shall be modified by the object. The medium must in this 
way give its impression to the organ from the object, and 
this impression, whether by linear or oscillatory impulse, 
must be perpetuated to the retina, and through the optic 



MATTER AS STATICAL AND DYNAMICAL. 117 

nerve to the sensorium, and this must give all the condi- 
tions that any conceived matter may present for distinct 
and definite perception. 

A more full apprehension of the force which is to make 
bodies luminous, will give a more complete and adequate 
insight into the necessary determinations of vision, but 
enough is given in the idea of a space-filling force, to ap- 
prehend that this, and not any dead matter, must be the 
medium of perception by sight. The force which must 
move such inert matter would be all that could impress 
the organ, and when we have the force given in idea, the 
dead matter may be altogether dispensed with as wholly 
useless and irrelevant. 

Thus it is that the whole origination and endless modi- 
fications of our phenomenal experience, which is communi- 
cated through our organs of sense, have their sufficient 
conditions in the one idea of a space-filling force, which 
may vary itself in intensity, rapidity, and direction of 
agency, indefinitely. This substantial matter must make 
its impressions upon the organs according to its condition- 
ing nature and their organic constitution, and must thus 
reveal itself through them in determinate modes. The 
forces constitute the substantial existence, the modes of 
organic impression and perception constitute the phenom- 
enal or qualitative existence. 

5. Statics and Dynamics. — The sense-conception of 
matter can by no possibility admit of any thing static or 
dynamic in nature. The supposed matter is wholly dead ; 
mere inertia ; and can possess nothing by which it inay be 
conceived as holding itself in place whereby it may sustain 
any thing, nor as moving from its place whereby it might 



118 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE TINIYEESE. 

push or -pvll any thing. If it upheld any thing, as a static, 
it must itself be sustained by some ab extra force, and if it 
repelled any thing as a dynamic, it must itself be pressed 
by a force not its own. The forces introduced, to deter- 
mine the dead matter, would do all the work without the 
superfluous introduction of such an inert extension. 

But our thought-conception of a space-filling force as 
the true substantial matter involves the full conception of 
both statics and dynamics. Counteraction in equilibrium 
must stand self-fixed. It is a force holding itself in its 
place. It is competent to sustain a pressure equal to the 
energy of its own antagonism, and can be displaced only 
when the intruding body shall carry with it the energy of 
a more intense antagonism. Thus with all masses of mat- 
ter. In any form or magnitude, there is necessarily a point 
towards which all the outlying points tend, and on the 
force in which all the forces in the whole mass are sus- 
tained. When that point is at rest all the other points are 
held at rest by it, and when its vis inertim is overcome, all 
the forces in the other points of the mass will also yield 
their vis inertim, A static force is that antagonism which 
holds itself at rest in its balanced coimteraction. 

A dynamic force goes to the overcoming of a static. 
It may draw or expel, but it goes to the removing another 
force at rest, or to the retarding or accelerating another 
force in motion. Should the dynamic not be sufficient to 
overcome the static, still, in so far as its intensity of antag- 
onism goes toward this, it is thus far dynamic though the 
static does not yield to it. And this is involved in the 
very conception of matter as a space-filling force. The 
counteraction in any point is static when in equilibrium, 



MATTER AS STATICAL AND DYNAMICAL. 119 

but when the agency in one direction is more energetic 
than that in the other, though there is still counteraction, 
yet must the weaker yield to the more energetic and the 
whole counter-agency perpetually displace itself, in the 
direction of the working of the more strenuous agency. 
Such perpetually moving space-filling force may impinge 
upon another force and impel, or may be attached to 
another force and draw, and thus in any direction, the 
antagonist force in motion is a dynamic, either of impul- 
sion or tension. A dynamic either drives or draws. 

It is also obvious that a static is nothing in nature with- 
out a dynamic, for were there no push nor pull there could 
be no holding of place by an equal antagonism ; and so also 
that there can be no dynamic in nature that has not also 
its static, for no push nor pull could be without a stand- 
point. In nature, there is a complete sophism of the 
varepov irpoTcpov; and were there no way of attaining to 
the supernatural, both the perpetuation of rest and the be- 
ginning of motion would be absurdities ; for you must first 
have your motion in the very act of holding at rest, and 
you must first have your rest as the hold-point or spring- 
board of your moving some other body. The only way 
out of such an antinomy, between nature in the understand- 
ing and nature in the sense, is the apprehension of a super- 
natural in the reason. An absolute spirit has the spring to 
an originating act in himself, in that he is ethical law in his 
spiritual excellency to govern himself. He may originate 
action, directly from the claims as known to be due from 
himself to himself. He has an ethical stand-point and 
spring-board, and can thus put forth his spiritual act in 
counteraction and make a beginning. Spu'itual activity 



120 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIYEESE. 

put in counter-agency makes a physical stand-point ; takes 
a position and holds it ; and in that a static force already 
is, from which all physical mechanics may go out in ope- 
ration. 

6. Principles of Motion. — If the mind be filled only 
with the sense-conception of matter as mere inertia^ then 
can there be no apprehension of any principles of motion, 
and all its laws must be arbitrarily imposed. The very 
laws are mere facts, and for aught we can know, they might 
have been any other way as well as the present. With 
such a conception of matter, it was a toilsome and tedious 
process to find how in fact matter had been made to move, 
and then generalize the facts as far as possible and call 
them laws of motion. Dead matter cannot move any way, 
nor energize at all, and thus no thinking about matter, no 
insight of it, can get any motion, much less any laws of 
motion, out of it. The mind can only learn by experience 
how matter does move, and then generalize these facts 
and say they are laiDS of motion. In the true substantial 
matter, as space-filling force, the eternal pvinGiples of mo- 
tion are already given, and may be found. 

We wiU take the laws of motion as experimentally at- 
tained, and we may successively see, that the immutable 
principles of space-filling forces wiU necessarily determine 
every law of motion to be as it has been found that it is. 
It is thus truly a principle in matter, and not merely a law 
arbitrarily constituted. 

The first Princij^le of motion is, that it must he recti- 
lineal and uniform. — ^This is a necessary determination of 
the reason in its insight into the grounds of force from 
whence all locomotion must be generated. When two 



PEINCIPLES OF MOTION. 121 

simple agencies counterwork, the result must be a resting 
against each other in static equihbrium, if the countervail- 
ing activities are of equal energies. If one activity be of 
greater energy, it will be counteracted by the other to the 
amount of its energy, but the excess of energy in the for- 
mer having nothing to balance it will forbid that it should 
be holden in any one point ; and yet, as the weaker activity 
continues its antagonism to the amount of its energy, there 
is a perpetual space-filling force, and which cannot be hold- 
en in any one point of space. The result must be a constant 
force which cannot abide in any one position, and is thus 
the idea of the generation of motion. A space-filling force, 
which cannot continue in any one point of space, is a space- 
filling force successively occupying difierent spaces, and is 
thus matter moving. Let these activities contiaue their 
respective energies in counterworking unchanged, and the 
force which balances the weaker energy will make its es- 
sential matter to be a permanent existence, but the excess 
of energy will make this permanent matter to be perpetu- 
ally changing its place. The motion must be mcessant. 
But this motion is generated only in the excess of the 
greater energy, and that is perpetually in its one luie of 
antagonism to the weaker activity, and must, therefore, 
determine the motion to be in its own invariable direction. 
The motion must be rectilineal. And this excess of energy 
in the greater over the less is invariable in degree, which 
must secure the passing from point to point to be in all 
points at the same rate. The motion must be uniform. 

This will be true not merely of one point of space-filfing 
force, but must hold invariably true of any aggregate 
amount of space-filling forces in a body. If all the pomts 



122 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

of force be invariable in their comparative energies, the one 
principle must include all. And they must all move inces- 
santly, rectilineally, and uniformly. 

And this principle must equally determine the transr 
mission of motion by impulse. If any amount of space- 
filling forces occupy their places at rest in their balanced 
action, and other forces moving come in contact m the line 
of their balanced antagonisms, the moving forces just 
bring their excess of energies in their direction of motion 
to the forces at rest, and add this excess to the activities 
working in the forces at rest in the same direction, and 
thus make them to have the same disparity of energy and 
in the same line of working, and thus the forces at rest 
must take on the same incessant motion, and in the same 
right-lined direction and uniform progression. And if the 
forces moving come in contact with other forces moving, 
by reason of greater velocity, the excess of energy on the 
one side of the antagonism in the swifter body will add its 
greater degree to the excess in the slower body that is less 
than its own, and this must quicken its motion ; but hence- 
forth that quickened motion must be incessant, right-lined, 
and uniform. The constant excess in its own direction 
must ever determine to a rectilineal and uniform motion. 

The second Principle of Motion will find its expression 
in the following formula — that motion which Uny superin- 
duced force loould give must he compounded with the 
motion which the forces already have. This will apply 
universally, and introduce a new principle beyond that 
which determined the motion in the former case. The 
principle in the first case was, that the more energetic 
activity must move the unbalanced force directly and 



PRINCIPLES OF MOTION. 123 

uniformly in its own line. There is now to be a combina- 
tion of forces, and there must therefore be a principle 
modifying both the old uniformity and the direction. An- 
other degree of excess in the antagonisms is given, and the 
old uniformity cannot continue ; also an activity transverse 
to the old antagonism is contemplated, and there cannot 
be the rectilineal movement before the greater energy. 
Both the degrees and the directions of the forces must be 
compounded. 

We take any matter moving under the control of the 
first principle of uniformity, in the line of the excess of the 
antagonist activity, and now superinduce a new force. It 
may be applied in the following directions and degrees pre- 
cisely in the line of the old antagonisms. It may be in the 
direction of the weaker energy of the moving forces, and 
yet not sufficient to balance the excess of energy in the 
stronger ; and it is then clear in the insight of reason, that 
it must retard the movement by just the degree of energy 
added to the resistance of this weaker side of the antago- 
nism. If sufficient to just equal and balance the excess, it 
must wholly suspend all motion. If sufficient to give to the 
weaker side of the antagonism a stronger activity, the ex- 
cess of energy changes sides and the old motion is not 
merely suspended but must be directly retrograde. If the 
superinduction be on the side of the more energetic activity, 
there must be an acceleration to just the degree in which 
the old excess of energy has been augmented. In all the 
above cases, it is manifest that the old motion is to be 
compounded with the new motion given, inasmuch as these 
compound motions are the resultants necessarily of the 
combming of the old and new forces, and thereby modify- 



124 THE ETEENAL PEINCrPLES OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

ing the excess of energy which generates the motion, 
though there can in these cases be no change of du'ection. 

But the superinduced force may also be applied trans- 
versely to the old antagonism. In such case, there can be. 
no balancing of the antagonism, nor direct reversal of the 
excess ; no merely increasing of the weaker nor the stronger 
activities, and thus no compounding of the forces and their 
movements can have any thing to do with the merely uni- 
form rate of movement, but will necessarily modify the 
direction, inasmuch as this new transverse force will not 
admit of the old excess of energy to go any way up or 
down its old line of working. This old excess of energy 
will continue in its old direction, and the sujDeriuduced 
force will come and continue in some transverse direction, 
and the first principle of motion can have no imhindered 
application. The movement cannot be in the line of the 
old more energetic antagonism, for the superinduced force 
now thwarts this by cutting across its hne ; and no more 
can the movement be in the line of the new force, because 
the old excess of energy continues to work in its former 
direction, and must thwart the superinduced force. 

This new force may come in any direction on either 
side of the line of the old antagonisms, but in any way, it 
must be in the same place with the old activities, and meet 
them in their commou point of counteraction. That sujDcr- 
induced force is thus a thii-d activity, meeting the antago- 
nist activities in their point of contact, and interfering in 
the results of their working, and the motion induced must 
be determined by the compounding of all these activities. 
The excess of the antagonist energy, and thus the motion, 
was before on one side and in one direction of the antag- 



PRINCIPLES OF MOTION. 125 

onism, and the new force tends to move in its own direc- 
tion, and they can now only neutralize and balance them- 
selves in some common point between them. That common 
point will give its excess of energy as a unit, and move the 
force or molecule of matter accordingly, and the perpetua- 
tion of the activities must perpetuate the points in which 
they balance each other, and the motion must be through 
these points successively from one to another, and thus the 
Ime of motion must be through the points in which the 
compound agencies balance each other. 

The rate of movement, and the direction which the 
excess of energy on one side of the antagonism has engen- 
dered, being given, and then the rate of movement, and 
direction which must be engendered in the excess of 
energy on one side of the force to be superinduced, being 
known, we must compound the two after their respective 
ratios and directions, and that must be both the direction 
and velocity of the newly-acquired movement. Geomet- 
rically, it is manifest, this compounding of the excess of 
energies in the two forces must give its line between their 
directions, and dividing the angle their lines of direction 
may make. If of equal excess of energy, and moving at 
right angles to each other, their compound must be a bi- 
section of the right angle between them ; and if of equal 
excess of energy but moving in direct antagonism, their 
composition must be in a line perpendicular to their com- 
mon line of antagonism. If of unequal excess of energies 
their composition must give the line dividing their angle in 
the inverse ratio of the excess of energy, viz., the greater 
excess to have proportionally the less space, and the less 



126 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

excess to have proportionally the greater space, on their 
respective sides of the divided angle between them. 

This priQciple of compounding the motions of two 
forces, which are generated by their respective excess of 
energies on one side of their antagonist activities, is ap- 
plicable to any number of superinduced forces, and any 
variety in their excess of energies. In each case, the old 
motion must be given, and the resulting motion from the 
composition of the first superinduced force must be found, 
and this mil then become the given motion. This must 
then be compounded with the motion the second suj)erin- 
duced force would secure as its resultant ; and this is then 
a given motion to be compounded with a third superin- 
duction ; and thus onward to any number. The resulting 
motion must ever be the compound of that which either 
force applied in succession would give, together with that 
which had before been given in the original, or any aggre- 
gate of superinduced forces. The first principle determines 
the motion from the perpetuity and constant direction of 
the excess of energy which generates it ; and the second 
principle determines the motion from the compounding of 
the aggregate excess of energies in all the forces that con- 
spire to generate it. The law is necessarily given in the 
eternal principle read by the insight of reason. 

The third Principle of motion may be expressed in the 
formula, that the fate of motion will he as the force moving 
exceeds the force moved. This is perhaps more technically 
given by saying the velocity will be as the dynamical ex- 
ceeds the statical force. The static force is the intensity 
of energy with which the antagonism holds itself in po- 
sition ; and the dynamic force is the intensity of energy in 



PKINCIPLES OF MOTION. 127 

one side of the antagonism, by which that antagonism is 
carried out of its position. In the static, both activities 
equally energize and resist each other, and the degree of 
the energies which rest against each other is the measure 
of the force. In the dynamic, both activities energize and 
resist, and thus constitute a force ; but one activity is of 
superior energy and thus perpetually displaces this force, 
and the degree of this excess of energy is the dynamic 
force. These may be of greater intensity in each point of 
a small body, so as to equal a less intensity in the many 
points in a large body ; and thus it must follow that it is 
not the volume but the density of matter that resists 
motion, and that it is not either the volume or the density 
of matter, but the excess of energy on one side, that over- 
comes rest. 

In the first principle we had uniformity and direction 
of motion ; in the second we had variation from original 
uniformity and direction ; and here in the third, we seek 
the degree of motion, or the velocity. Resistance to 
motion is as the density ; and resistance to rest, or capacity 
to generate motion, is as the excess of energy on one side 
of the antagonism, and this excess of energy must be most 
in the densest bodies moved; it is thus mainly with the 
density of matter that we need here to be conversant, and 
to find in this the ground for the determining principle of 
the motion we seek. 

The intensity of antagonism in any point of force is its 
measure to resist motion. If this intensity be small, a 
small measure of excess in the energy of one activity over 
the other will generate motion ; and if this intensity be 
great, a greater excess of energy on one side of the activi- 



128 THE ETERNAL PRmCIPLES OF THE UNIYEESE. 

ties must be necessary to generate motion. K then one 
point of force is to move another point of force, the former 
must have one of two prerogatives ; either a greater inten- 
sity, and then when just moved its impulse will overcome 
the intensity of the latter and displace it, or, a strong ex- 
cess of energy in one side of its activities that may move 
to a violent impulse, and then, though of less intensity, the 
strenuous movement of the former may displace the latter. 
In either case, the principle is at once seen which deter- 
mines this third case of motion. The force moved is as its 
static intensity ; the force moving is as its static intensity 
combined with its excess of energy on one side, and how- 
ever this be made up so as to exceed the force of the 
former, or force moved, whether by more static intensity 
or more excess of energy in one activity, when thus ex- 
ceeding it must generate motion. 

And the rate of motion, or velocity, must be propor- 
tioned to this excess of dynamic over the static force. The 
least degree beyond equilibration of intensity must move; 
and the augmentation of j)reponderance must so much 
more move, and thus as nothing but this excess generates 
motion and aU the excess generates its own measure of 
motion, the degree of motion, or velocity, must be as the 
moving exceeds the moved intensity of force. 

And this is manifestly applicable to all cases. K one 
body, or aggregate of forces, is to move another, the 
points of static antagonism are all to be overcome ; and 
the points of static antagonism, in the body that is the 
mover, all give their intensity and their excess of energy on 
one side of the static antagonism, that they may conspire 
to the moving ; and thus the aggregate forces are each as 



PEINCIPLES OF MOTION. 129 

one force, and the whole body moving may be called the 
force moving, and the whole body moved may be called 
the force moved, and then the third principle of motion is 
directly expressed by them. The true idea of static and 
dynamic forces contains the principle which necessarily de- 
termines this third case of motion. 

In this third principle of motion there is involved the 
conception of momentum^ which on account of its wide 
application in physical science, it is important should be 
made clear and exact. In the body moving, its power of 
impulse or capacity to act on other bodies is an aggregate 
of force from two sources. It has received the excess of 
intensity over its own in the body moving it, and this now 
becomes one part of its force to strike and move another 
body. This is measured by its own velocity, for it is this 
excess that has made the whole movement, and we may 
thus represent the force acquired by the velocity imparted. 
But its measure of intensity that it originally had, and 
which had neutralized just an equal amount of intensity in 
the body which impinged upon it, has not at aU been anni- 
hilated. It neutralized its own measure in the other body 
to produce motion, and left only the excess to pass over 
into the moved body, but itself remained in, and goes along 
with, and indeed is the very essence of, the moved body, 
and this original intensity it now has also, wherewith to 
strike and move other bodies. This original intensity of 
antagonism is its quantity of matter. 

The aggregate of force in the excess imparted from the 
moving body, and which is represented by the acquired 
velocity together with its oAvn original intensity of antago- 
nism, and which is its quantity of matter, now constitute 
9 



130 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIYEESE. 

the capability the body possesses to generate motion in 
some third body ; and this whole aggregate of motion-gen- 
erating force is what we comprehend imder the term 
momentum. It is commonly said to be compounded of the . 
velocity and quantity of matter, but it should not thereby 
be understood that mere motion has itself any moving 
force, or capacity to generate motion, but only that the 
motion is the index of the moving force which generated ' 
it, and which has been transferred to it from the force 
moving it. 

The principle involved in virtual velocities^ where the 
less quantity of matter balances the greater, or more gen- 
erally in all cases of equilibrium, refers at once to the con- 
ception of momentum. The less force balances the greater, 
because the motion of the less would be the more rapid in 
the inverse ratio of its comparative weight. The momen- 
ta of the greater and smaller weight are equal, and though 
there is now rest, yet is there what is termed virtual mo- 
tion^ for the forces are so arranged that if moved, the ex- 
cess of velocity in one must compensate for the excess in 
intensity of the other. All static forces have this virtual 
motion, viz., a tendency to move while reciprocally bal- 
anced. 

These same j)rinciples for the above cases of motion, 
and the conception of momenta and virtual velocities de- 
termine all the facts in the pressure of fluids in Hydrostatics, 
Pneumatics, &c., as also in the revolutions of j^lanetary 
bodies, and may in the sequel be seen to condition and 
thereby to give law to aU the natural operations of magnet- 
ism, electricity, and indeed to be the very nature and 
essence of the force of gravity itself. The one simple con- 



CREATION A NATURE. 131 

ception of a space-filling force, as an antagonism of simple 
spiritual activities, is the source in which the reason, with- 
out experiment or discursive conclusions in judgment, by 
its own insight may read the necessary conditions and im- 
mutable laws of nature. Force itself is a fact ; a thing 
made ; and in its making the very essence of the material 
world is created ; but the immutable and necessary princi- 
ples which must determine all its working were not made ; 
they lay uncreated and eternal in the bosom of the Abso- 
lute Reason, and were the grand archetypes which guided 
his creative hand in first setting the cii'cuit of the heavens 
on the face of the primaeval abyss. 

v. Creation a Nature. — Nature, natiira^ {a nascoi\) 
is a birth, an outspringing, a growth ; and includes the con- 
ception of an existence that has a beginning, and which 
from the beginning continually grows out, or develops 
itself, by a successive series of changes which manifest 
themselves in new phenomena or events. It is a perpetual 
succession of new births from itself. All these outgrowths 
were originally in the created existence, and virtually or 
potentially had their being in the first moment of creation, 
and necessarily develop themselves in their order as the 
created existence works on before the inner force of which 
it is constituted. It is applied properly to every created 
individual thing, inasmuch as each separate thing has its 
own peculiarly constituted forces which make it to be what 
it is, and give to it its own essential identity, and which 
secure that it must develop itself after the conditions of its 
original constitution. Hence we say of any particular 
thing, that it grows, or works, or moves in any way, ac- 
cordinsc to its own nature. And as each constituted or 



132 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE TNIVEKSE. 

created thing has its nature, so all creation is, in the same 
way, spoken of as having a nature. The universal ongoing 
of cause and effect is but the successive birth and growth 
of that which was already constituted and necessitated in 
the first creation, and we thus speak of it as the order of 
nature. The word has no proper application to that which 
is not continually passing through an ordered series of 
births, according to the conditions imposed upon it at its 
creation. That which was not created, or constituted of 
such conditioned forces, has not a nature, but must be 
wholly supernatural. Of all created existence we may say 
in general, it is Nature. 

The propriety and truth of this is seen by the eye of 
reason, in the Idea so far attained of what creation is. An 
antagonism of simple activities, which takes and holds po- 
sition and fills sj)ace, and thus constitutes that force which 
is the essence of matter, combined with a diremptive force 
that may work in it, has already within itself a nature, and 
by its creation it already exists under conditions and laws 
which determine both that it must, and how it must, pro- 
duce itself onward in perpetual outgrowths, until its whole 
inner energy is exhausted. The principles of motion and 
momenta are principles older than matter, and as unmade 
themselves may be said to be put into matter when it is 
made, and thus give to it a nature which wholly conditions 
it, and which enstamp upon it its whole history, to the 
penetrating eye of reason, before that nature has gone a 
step onward in the march of cause and event. Nothing 
can come out that was not originally put in, and what was 
originally put in must come out in the very order of the 
constituted conditions. In nature, non datur casus^ i. e., 



CEEATION A NATURE. 133 

events without cause ; non datur fatum^ i. e., events with- 
out a conditioned cause ; non datur inertia, i, 6., a cessation 
of working ; non datur saltus, i. 6., a leaping over some link 
in the series ; and non datur vacuum, i. e., a chasm or void 
within her sphere, where there is utter emptiness. 

This does not exclude the repeate'd interpositions of the 
Creator. New creations put into nature from a source 
above nature, and new modifications of the old by the 
absolute Maker of nature, have within their conception 
nothing unreasonable. Creation may be finished by any 
number and distance of intervals between the working, and 
when finished may receive any number and variety of 
miraculous interventions from its author, according to hip 
good pleasure. But nature herself can originate nothing, 
and only bring out that with which she teemed on the very 
morning of her creation. If the Creator originate new ex- 
istences in nature, as Absolute Reason he will have reasons 
for it, and will superinduce the new upon the old in con- 
formity of natures between the new and old, so that the 
last day's work shall still make one harmonious nature in 
combination with the works of all other days of creation ; 
and the whole completed work shall as truly fill out and 
equal the eternal archetype, as if it had sprung up at once 
and instantaneously under his creating hand. Thus all 
within and successively coming out below the point where 
force, as matter, fills space and grows on in time will be 
nature; a perpetual springing out from the old stock of 
new modes of existence ; but all above that point will be 
wholly unconditioned by that which is within and below, 
and will remain forever the supernatural; the unborn, 
changeless, and absolutely independent I Am. All within 



134 THE ETEKNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

nature we may term the physical^ and all above nature the 
spiritual. 

8. The jVlATEEiAii Ceeation a Spheee. — If a force be 
steadily applied to a heavy body, it will at first be still mo- 
tionless, but a continued strain at length puts the whole in 
motion. K I crowd against a boat floating by the wharf, 
I must perpetuate the pressure for some considerable time 
before the boat will move. Each point in the body to be 
moved is a static force, holding itself m its position by its 
own antagonism, and the force apphed must pass from the 
point of immediate pressure successively through every 
point to the most remote, and it is only when the last is 
reached and overcome that the whole mass can be ejected 
from its place. The force has been constantly going in to 
the mass, but it has been apparently dormant, or truly 
latent, until the whole pressure upon the centre of the body 
has been overcome, and then the mass moves off together. 

If I press two rigid metallic rods together at their ends, 
the force does not continue merely at the point of contact, 
but propagates itself through every point of both rods to 
my hands at the opposite ends, and then, though every 
point in the rods has been pervaded by the applied force, 
yet do not these points move from their positions; because 
the middle position at the point of contact in the rods has 
been equaUy pressed in the du-ection of the rods, and the 
balanced counteraction has kept that point a static in the 
direction of the force; and also the rigidity of the rods at 
their points of contact has been greater than the lateral pres- 
sure in the compounding of the energies at the middle point, 
and thus the middle point could not divide itself every way 
and permit the positions in the lines of the rods to range 



MATEEIAL CREATION A SPHERE. 135 

themselves every way about the middle point as a centre. 
In other words, the force in the direction of the rods has 
been balanced, and the adhesion of the metal has not been 
overcome so as to permit the second law of motion to send 
off positions in any compounded direction. But if I should 
procure a complete fusion of the metal in the two rods at 
the point of contact, and thus dissolve the rigidity, the 
pressure in the direction of the rods would permit that each 
should be turned back upon itself by the other, and also, 
in the compounding of the energies, that each should send 
off positions every way on each side of the middle point, 
and the result of the pressure of my hands, in crowding the 
rods together at their ends, would be an accumulation of 
the metal from both in a rude globe of molten matter about 
the point of contact. 

A careful application of the principles of motion, or 
rather the same insight into the principles of force which 
determine the laws of motion, will detect the very lines in 
which the molecules of melted matter must move off from 
the centre, and the very positions they must ultimately 
assume, and can thus beforehand determine that a globe, 
and not any other form, must necessarily impress itself 
upon the matter that shall accumulate about any point of 
simple counter-agency. For it is to be carefully noted, 
that not the force which is the component essence of the 
matter itself in the metallic rods is to be here regarded, but 
the newly apphed force which generates the motion that 
arranges the particles of matter into a globe. Were there 
nothing but the forces acting in the matter, whether the 
rods were rigid or molten, every point would be and re- 
main a static, and the whole mass would be at rest in its 



136 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ITNIYEESE. 

original position. The newly applied force is a distinct 
thing fi'om the force as the matter to which it is applied, 
and if this were as palpable to the sense as the matter it 
moves, we should at once notice the force as the mover, 
and not the metallic forces as the moved. The metallic 
matter, as palpable to sense, is used by the force applied to 
it, and which apphed force, as working only in the matter, 
is impalpable to sense, and thus the palpable matter is 
reaUy only the index of what the impalpable force is doing ; 
the latter registers itself and thereby manifests itself in the 
former, and it is really only the latter that we regard and 
wish to follow in its work, for this is truly the sphere-fdrm- 
ing agency. 

This may be more folly illustrated, and the insight of 
the reason assisted more clearly to apprehend it by taking 
two analogous cases, in one of which the matter is apparent 
to the sense, and in the other the matter does not become 
apparent. A stone drops into the lake, and as it sinks from 
the surface it displaces its bulk of water and then passes 
from that position to a lower, displacing again an equal 
bulk, and thus successively till it rests upon the bottom. 
The separating and coming together of the water suddenly 
through the vacuum left by the descending stone makes a 
new counteraction, and is truly the introduction of an- 
other force into the essential forces which constitute the 
water itself in the lake. Now this new force registers 
itself at once in the placid surface of the lake, and we follow 
its agency in the circling waves that go off from the j)oint 
of the stone's descent, and in this undulating disturbance 
we have the visible index of what this newly introduced 
force is doing. It manifests itself to sense in the effects it 



MATERIAL CEEATION A SPHERE. 137 

produces upon the material forces already existing, and we 
rest upon the index as appearance, and do not attempt 
ordinarily to trace by the eye of reason the invisible force 
which has been really the efficient agent in this circular un- 
dulation. But we will now follow the stone in its descent, 
and as it sank below the surface, there was a like displace- 
ment of the water and a coming rush together again through 
this perpetuated vacuum, and thus truly another central 
waving expansion impressing itself upon the water beneath 
the surface, and so on in continual succession to the bottom 
of the lake. The whole water from the surface to the bot- 
tom has been made to arrange itself in circular waves about 
the path of the stone's descent, but no index of the action 
of the force below the surface has been given. We see the 
waves on the surface, but the waves below do not appear. 
"We no longer rest upon the senses, but if we attempt to 
read the action going on below the surface, we are obliged 
at once to resort to some new process for apprehending it. 
The man least capable of insight, and most dependent 
upon sense in his activity, will doubtless construct in imagi- 
nation such circling waves in the water down to the bot- 
tom, and apprehend the action of the new force only in the 
indices which his imagination supplies. It will thus be, as 
is his apprehension on the surface, solely in the indices of 
what the applied force is doing, and not in any rational 
insight that follows the efficiency itself in its working ; the 
only difference being this, that on the surface he sees it, 
and below the surface he imagines it. But the man that has 
made himself more independent of sense, and competent 
to use the insight of his reason in apprehending the efficient 
force itself, will not care to caU in any aid from his fancy in 



138 THE ETEENAX, PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIYEESE. 

constructing imaginary circular waves that lie may follow 
to the bottom, but he will apprehend that newly induced 
force itself, and follow it directly out in the waving circles 
it must make in its own action ; seeing immediately in it- 
self what it must do, and not in any constructions of the 
fancy the indices only of what he imagines it has done. 
And that mind can follow the naked force in its action upon 
the sm-face as well as below it. Independent of what his 
eye perceives in the produced waves, his reason directly 
knows the forces and their laws which are there working, 
and in the forces knows what the circling waves must be, 
and not merely in the perceived waves judges what the 
forces have been. 

So would it be again, if we put the force at work in 
the unseen air about us. The percussion of solid bodies, 
or the force of the human voice, make their similar circu- 
lar, or, as entirely sm'rounded, their spherical waves ui the 
atmosphere, and the empirical observer because he cannot 
see the waves and yet cannot guide his movement without 
some constructed indices, makes these waves in his fancy, 
and thus follows the fcrces where he imagines they have 
gone, while the miud accustomed to use and rely upon his 
rational intuitions, dispenses altogether with any con- 
structions of the fancy, and makes the force itself in its 
own laws pioneer the way to the conditioned appearances 
which he knows must come from its working. 

This followiug out of the action of force m its own 
laws is what we now need, and if reference be made to 
empirical appearances as the registers and indices of the 
efficient reahties, it is only thereby to assist the less inde- 
pendent thinkers, guided awhile by the radices, ultimately 



MATERIAL CREATION A SPHERE. 139 

to mature the use of their rational apprehension, so that 
they too may dispense with the sense-perception and guide 
themselves solely by the clear insight of the reason. In 
this way we come to know, not by any inference from one 
appearing fact what according to former experience was 
the probable fact that preceded it, and thus, at the best, 
only creep up from one fact to another on the ground of 
an assumed uniformity in experience, but by an uumediate 
insight into things themselves, we know what those things 
must be and do, and how the facts must stand from the 
eternal principles which condition them. 

Taking then the independent action of force, as the 
conception of two countervailing spiritual activities, and 
following out the action directly according to the neces- 
sary laws of motion, we come to the knowledge that mat- 
ter must accumulate itself about the point of counter- 
agency in the form of a sphere, and must take on all the 
properties of a solid globe, which has the whole space filled 
from the centre to the circumference with the successive 
forces, in their contiguous positions, sent off from the cen- 
tral action of the original simple antagonism. Whether 
we lean upon the indices in the supposed metallic rods, 
fused at their pressed j)oints of contact, or take, as an in- 
dependent object for the reason, the simple agency of a 
spiritual counteraction, in a force that builds itself up about 
a position that itself has first fixed itself in, the true con- 
dition and law of motion and combination will be the same 
in both, and the real force which does the forming work 
will be the same distinct efficiency to be followed in each 
case. Whether it be pure original force, which takes and 
fills space and accumulates material existence about its 



140 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

point of counteraction, or whether it be some new force in- 
troduced into matter, and moving this already existing 
matter into new forms, the action and motion and formal 
combinations in each must be precisely the same, and the 
practised eye of reason can apprehend and follow the pure 
original force as readily as that which registers itself in 
already existing forces. 

At the point of counteraction each agency must turn 
its opposite back upon itself, so that there is not merely a 
counter-working at one point where the agencies meet, as 
in the inception of the antagonism, but from the very ac- 
tion of the antagonism, the antagonists have made each 
the other to react upon itself, and press back upon its own 
line of action, so that not only now is there counteraction 
where one simple activity meets the other, but each way 
in the line of action, each activity has been made to react 
upon itself, and there is counter-agency each way out of 
and beyond the point of contact, and thus already has 
there been an accumulation; a growth, a new-birth of 
forces from the original point of counter-working. And 
now, were there but the simple law of action and reaction 
as opposite and equal, the accumulations of force must be 
in the right line of the original activities, and each one ac- 
cumulate, by its retorsion from the energy of the other, 
new antagonisms in itself successively as from point to 
point it was made to turn back upon itself. Matter would 
thus necessarily be generated in right lines. But the 
second law of motion comes in immediately upon the orig- 
inal counter-working, and so soon as there' succeeds a re- 
action in each simple activity, and thus a force fixing upon 
a new position out of the original point of contact, there 



MATEKIAL CREATION A SPHEEE. 141 

comes at once an extended static each way in this hne, and 
thus an excess of resistance over that of a lateral move- 
ment from the point of contact. The reagency therefore 
cannot move directly back in each in the line of the orig- 
inal antagonism, but must be compounded of the forces 
acting, and thus moving out every way from the point of 
original contact, and as it were, lifting itself up every way 
from this point as a centre; and thus the force accumu- 
lates, not only back in the line of the original agencies 
through their mutual reaction, but also, from the com- 
pounding of the movement of such accumulation of resist- 
ance in that direction, every way laterally from the point 
of counteraction. While then the simple reacting force 
vfould go out in right lines directly back each way from 
the point of contact, the compounded forces will rise, as 
it were in a ring, at the point of contact directly transverse 
of the original line of action. 

But again, so soon as the accumulation should thus be- 
gin in this ring at right angles to the original direction, the 
antagonisms of which the ring is itself composed must turn 
the component simple activities each back upon itself 
through all the points of force in the ring, just as at first 
the one central antagonism turned its simple activities back 
upon themselves. This pushing each its fellow-activity 
back upon itself, in every point of force composing the 
transverse ring, must accumulate two other rings of forces, 
one on each side of the first or equatorial ring, and which 
will be, m fact, the turning of the whole rmg on each side 
from itself, and making it to flow m newly engendered 
streams of forces on both sides backward toward the polar 
points. The continued activity of the central antagonism, 



142 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIYEESE. 

kept by the polar points from going back any further in a 
right hne as an axis, must ^Derpetuate this flowing back on 
each side of the equator, in new generations of forces, till 
they meet in their respective polar points, and a proper 
globe is thus formed by a spherical layer all about the cen- 
tral point. This primitive globe is now self-balanced in all 
its points ; but as the central action goes on, it must again 
push each way in the axis and generate two other polar 
points beyond, thereby elongating the axis, and in this 
elongation there comes as before a static rest in the axial 
direction, and the central working must rise again in a new 
transverse ring, and repeat a new flow of forces in their 
rings from the equator each way to the poles, and augment 
the globe by another ensphering layer, when all again is 
balanced, and a new elongation of the axis takes place to 
repeat the same equatorial rising and flowing back to the 
poles, and so on indefinitely till the reactions in the accu- 
mulating forces of the globe balance the energy of the cen- 
tral working, and the globe ceases to grow. An infinite 
energy at the centre may generate new layers infinitely. 
The Almighty may make the globe of the universe as large 
as he pleases, and when he ceases to augment the central 
action against the ensphered reactions, the globe will have 
attained its determined magnitude. 

The eternal principles of motion determine the universe 
of matter to a spherical form, not merely, as Plato assumes, 
because this is the most reasonable as being the most 
perfect figure, but the most reasonable inasmuch as the 
insight of reason determines the space-filling force to such 
result. 

It is also manifest that this sphere so formed will be a 



MATERIAL CREATION A SPHERE. 143 

concrete unity, and not a mass of separate and disjoined 
particles merely aggregated in juxtaposition. The central 
antagonism turns each simple agency back upon itself by a 
continuous movement, and as this becomes an extended 
static, it generates the new compounded lateral movement, 
that rises as it were in an equatorial rmg about the middle 
point of counteraction transverse of the direction in the 
simple activities, and then flows back on each side of the 
equatorial ring to the poles, and balances the whole against 
the polar points, to begin and go over again the same pro- 
cess perpetually till the universal globe is finished. There 
is not, thus, a single position within the sphere, except the 
centre, that has been taken separately and independently ; 
but each position has been taken and held by the new force 
generated and sent to it in a continuous action from the one 
preceding, and thus every point of force is held where it is, 
not merely by its own antagonism but by the conjoint action 
of every other point of force in the sphere. The movement 
to each, in the eye of the reason, has been through its pre- 
ceding conditions, and yet as these conditions could admit 
of no appreciable interval between them, the whole uprising 
is to the sense simultaneous. The central point of counter- 
agency is thus at once made a ball, whose radii are the 
centre and one point or position out of it on every side of 
it, and the continual working at the centre, continually 
generates new balls within the old, expanding the old as 
the new are generated within them, and all the layers thus 
crowded out by the new central creations are in a continu- 
ous connection with the new, and the whole globe is held in 
one as it were by a perpetuated agency that runs through 
and connects every position. No portion of the material 



144 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

force is isolate from the rest, but the whole ball is a con- 
crete from the centre through its entire sphere. 

It thus follows, that no portion of matter in the forces 
accumulated in this globe, can be reverted back into the 
simple agencies from which these forces were generated, 
and thus become again not force but simple spiritual ac- 
tivity and which would be the same as the annihilation of 
matter, except by a collapse at the centre. While the cen- 
tral antagonism is constant, all the force that has been 
generated and sent out from it will press back upon it but 
cannot escape through it. By no way can the created 
matter be lost except through a dissolution of the central 
force, and the instant that this central antagonism should 
cease and the simple agencies counterworking there should 
separate, the outlying forces in the globe would have 
nothing to rest upon, and they must all dissolve, and 
literally, 

" Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
Leave not a wreck behind." 

All matter, moreover, must thus continually remain not 
only so long as the central force holds, but it must remain 
as it went out from the centre. Except as some modifying 
action follow out after it from the centre, the force that has 
already gone off in accumulation about the centre will con- 
tinue unchanged. The way to superinduce new forces 
into the material universe, and shape to different results 
those already acting, will be by new or modified forces at 
the centre. The whole globe is controlled through the 
central agency. What has gone off, so far as we have yet 
followed out the creative action, has been only an accumu- 



THE PKINCIPLE OF GRAVITY. 145 

lation of space-filling forces, and the whole globe is consti- 
tuted of manifold antagonisms, each and all occupjdng their 
own positions, and held in them by the one activity that 
pervades them all. While thus a concrete, it is also mani- 
fest that this globe of forces is a perfect static. Any action 
that changes the equilibrium in one point finds no counter- 
action, in the even balance of the whole, till it has gone 
through and equahzed itself in the change of the whole. 
An introduction of any new force, or augmented action, at 
the centre, must make itself felt through all the globe. 

9. The Pkinciple of Gravity. — It is the crowning 
glory of Induction, that it prompted to the search and 
guided to the attainment of the law of gravity. The 
name of Newton is made immortal fii'om this sublime dis- 
covery. It wUl detract nothing from the true honor of 
the Inductive philosophy, nor from the undying fame of 
Kewton, to put in the precise light of truth what is the 
exact amount of physical science secured in that discovery. 
Its hypothesis was that there was a tendency in all matter 
to approach to aU other matter in certain ratios. This 
hypothesis was suggested to the fertile mind of Newton 
by a single occurrence, and when tried by extended obser- 
vation, it was found in accordance with so many other oc- 
cm-rences, that there was no hesitation in assuming it as a 
imiversal fact. Very extended and profound researches 
into appropriate facts, especially the comphcated facts of 
the variations in the moon's revolutions, at length con- 
firmed the conclusion, that the ratio of this gravitating 
tendency in matter was directly as the quantity of the 
matter, and inversely as the square of the distance. This 
fact of the gravitating tendency of matter, and the further 
10 



146 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

facts of its ratios, put into a general formula, enables the 
natural philosopher to classify an immense amount of par- 
ticular facts under this simple category, and ever after to 
kQOW their place and recognize their relations in the grand 
system of facts which he brings together. This is the 
extent of its use, the taking of this as a broader fact which 
may embrace a vast number of particular facts within it, 
and enable to say, because this is fact, therefore these 
other particular facts are as they have been found to be. 
It is thus called the Law of Gravity, not because the prin- 
ciple determining it has at all been found, but only because 
such a general fact having been found, the subordiaate 
facts can all be referred to it. It does not reveal why the 
facts embraced in this formula are, nor that they might not 
have been other and opposite ; but simply having by a 
broad induction so far found them thus to be, and then 
assuming that through all experience they will be found so 
to be, there is hence the warrant for concluding that 
these particular facts are embraced in the imiversal one. 
It can only suppose matter, as originally inert, to have 
such a tendency arbitrarily imposed upon it, and not at aU 
that there are principles older than the facts, and which 
eternally and immutably condition the facts, and are thus 
infallible reasons for the facts. 

Of this tendency in matter to approach other matter, 
no explanation can be given. It may sometimes be said 
that it seeks to approach, as if the explanation would be 
given that there was some sentient life in matter, and that 
this tendency was the congeniality of social affinities ; the 
movement of matter expounded by the susceptibilities of 
mind. Just as it was early said in explanation of the 



THE PEINCIPLE OF GEAVITY. 147 

rising water in the pump, that nature ahhorred a vacuum. 
This attraction^ as now named, is as wholly vacant of all 
reason as was the suction^ as then called. When the fact 
of gravity had been discovered, then this power of suction 
came readily within it; the weight or gravitating force 
of the atmosj)here pressing upon the water out of the pump, 
forced it up into the vacuum made within the pump, and 
we put away all our conceptions of " the powers of suc- 
tion " and " abhorrence of a vacuum," and by an insight oi 
reason foUow the force which does the whole work, and 
smile at the unreasoning simplicity of an earlier philosophy. 
But what has been gained, except simply remo^dng the 
mystery and our ignorance one step further back ? Why 
the atmosphere seeks the earth is just as truly without a 
reason, as why nature abhors a vacuum; and the word 
attraction has within it as gross a solecism, when the ne- 
cessary law of forces is apprehended, as had the old word 
suction. Matter no more draws matter, than the pump 
sucked water. The pump removed the air from a space, 
and an outside force pressed water into it ; and so the cen- 
tral force sends off matter through a given sphere, and 
the same force which sends off all molecules thereby 
presses back each one. And as an estimate of the force 
of atmospheric pressure enabled the philosopher to deter- 
mine the power of the pump, even so does the estimate of 
the central force enable the philosopher to determine the 
power of gravity. 

The difference in the two cases is, however, very wide 
and important. The philosophy of the pump was grounded 
in a higher /«ci5 only, and that fact left wholly inexplicable. 
The pump was explained only by a reference to a higher 



148 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIYEESE. 

fact which could not be explained; and by leaving the 
higher inexplicable, the whole was truly an impenetrable 
mystery. But if we expound the force of gravity, not by 
running it into some higher fact which is itself left in dark- 
ness, but by aj)plying an unmade and eternal principle to 
it, which must necessarily so condition all facts of material 
existence, then have we a radical and ultimate exposition, 
and have traced all the mystery in the nature of matter up 
to the light of the supernatural reason, and can say gravity 
is thus, because the immutable principle in the absolute 
reason determined it must be thus and not otherwise. 
Gravity is then no longer a mere fact^ a thing made, and 
which might have been any otherwise made ; but a fact 
mth an eternal and immutable law in it ; a fact embodying 
an uncreated and necessary principle of the reason, and 
in following which principle in the making, the absolute 
Creator manifested his immutable wisdom and truth. To 
this eternally necessary and immutable law of gravity, we 
now turn the insight of the reason, that we may clearly 
apprehend the unmade principle which conditions and de- 
termines it to be thus and no otherwise. 

ISTo one point in the sphere can be equally balanced in 
its own simple antagonistic agencies, except the central 
point. Here the originating, simple activities begin, and 
hold each other in balanced energy, and turn each other 
back upon themselves, thus making a tendency to accumu- 
late force in two positions on the line of direction each 
side and out of the centre, and which tendency, as we have 
above seen, creates further the tendency to accumulate in 
an equatorial ring, and turn back each way this ring till its 
accumulations make an ensphering layer on each side to 



THE PEINCIPLE OF GRAVITY. 149 

the poles. As these new hemispheres of layers on each 
side of the equator are formed, they balance the whole 
equatorial antagonism in the aggregate in the polar points, 
and thus it must be that the edges, so to speak, of the 
hemispherical layers in the equator push back on each side 
in meridional lines against the poles. The whole globe is 
a unit, and yet the two simple activities so push each other 
back upon themselves, that one hemisphere is generated 
from the retorsions of one activity, and the other hemi- 
sphere from the opposite activity. As the generation of 
the globe proceeds, each layer, and each meridional line in 
the layer, must turn itself back from the energy of its 
antagonist, in new hemispherical layers, and thus the globe 
grows on the inside in every layer perpetually as well as 
by an outside layer ; or, in other words, the whole globe 
augments itself by the antagonism of its two hemispheres, 
as the first central point does by the antagonism of its sim- 
ple activities. 

We may then carry on the intuitive process, and take 
any position out of the centre and contiguous to the cen- 
tre, and it will be a point in a layer of points ensphering 
the centre, and it with every other point of that enspher- 
ing layer is pushed out and held in position by the antago- 
nist force working at the centre. At the same time, also, 
that the central antagonism is pushing out and holding in 
position all the points in this contiguous ensphering layer, 
each one of these points is reacting and pushing back upon 
the centre, and the aggregate of force in all these points 
just equilibrates the 'force of the central antagonism. 'No 
one force out of the centre balances the centre, but the ag- 
gregate of all the forces in the contiguous outlying layer. 



150 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE TNIVEESE. 

So also, take any contiguous point out of this first enspher- 
ing layer from the centre, and it will be one of many points 
in another layer ensphering the first, and all the points of 
this second ensphering layer will react upon the inner 
layer, as the points in it react and balance themselves upon 
the centre, and thus the aggregate of force in the second 
layer equiUbrates the aggregate of force in the first layer, 
and this equilibrates the antagonism at the centre, and 
thus on through all the concentric layers that may have 
been pushed out in completing the whole globe. 

The central point expels the outlying points on all 
sides, but each point in the contiguous layer of points 
about the centre, while in the same way acting outwards 
on all sides, must on the side towards the centre act upon 
it, and only on the side from the centre can act upon the 
layer exterior to it, and in concert with all the fellows of 
its layer push out this layer beyond. Out of the centre, 
therefore, each point in every layer acts on one side to- 
wards the centre and balances itself upon it, or upon it and 
the points intervening, and on the other side acts on the 
contiguous point of the exterior layer, and pushes that 
from the centre. The quantity of force in every molecule, 
and the direction of its working through the universal 
globe, how large soever it may be, is thus determined in 
the necessary conditions of the working of that central 
antagonism which generates the universal sphere. So 
m.uch only we need now to note, that every molecule of 
force works outward from its own inner antagonism, and 
by the working of all, every molecule of the universe out 
of the centre is pushed from the centre, and also is repelled 
back toward the centre, and the aggregate of all the forces 



THE PRINCIPLE OF GRAVITY. 151 

pushing outward is just balanced by the aggregate of all 
pushing mward, and thus every molecule conies to rest in 
a static equilibrium. 

It is a necessary determination that a globe so generat- 
ed, should have in every molecular force a centrifugal and a 
centripetal tendency just balancing each other, and thus 
holding the molecule at rest. The first is properly expul- 
sion^ as it is a primitive driving from the centre, and the 
latter is properly repulsion in its return back toward the 
centre. An utter misconception, as if at first there was 
somehow a suction drawing to the centre, and then a re- 
jection of the same from the centre, has appropriated the 
term attraction for what is truly the reagency, and repul- 
sion for what is truly the first outgoing agency. But any 
attempted change of terms would now be hopeless, and we 
shall therefore use attraction for the centripetal and repul- 
sion for the centrifugal tendency, yet philosophically noting 
perpetually, as in the Copernican system it is not the sun 
that rises and sets, so here it is not the coming to the cen- 
tre that is primitive, nor is this coming a drawing but a 
real a tergo pushing. 

We will then carry the insight of reason directly on 
through this idea, that we may determine the ratios of 
these forces. 

The central point of force pushes out all pouits and just 
equihbrates their aggregate reactions, and is thus truly the 
measure of force in the whole sphere. Every other point 
also pushes out in like manner in every direction from itselfj 
and if left to its own action would ensphere the contiguous 
outlying points of force about itself, but no point of force 
except the centre can push out and equilibrate all the other 



162 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIYEE8E. 

points of force in the sphere, since, on one side, all points 
of force push back upon the centre and balance themselves 
and all pushing back on them in the centre. As is the en- 
ergy of the central antagonism, such is its degree of force 
and, which is the same thing, its quantity of matter ; and 
in proportion to its energy will be the magnitude of the 
sphere generated, and thereby the degrees of force, or, as 
the same thing, the quantity of matter in each point of 
force through the whole sphere. The amount of centrifu- 
gal force in the whole sphere is, therefore, directly as the 
quantity of matter, and the amount of repulsion in the cen- 
tral molecule will also be as its quantity of matter ; and as 
each point out of the centre must be pressed out and press 
back proportioned' to the layers within and beyond it, so 
all molecules of the sphere must also have their repulsions 
directly as is to each one its quantity of matter. Li all 
respects, the force of repulsion must be directly as the 
quantity of matter. 

The molecule at the centre repels all the outlying mole- 
cules on all sides from the centre, with a force directly 
proportioned to the amount of matter in the sphere, and in 
the case of a sphere standing alone in the void, as must the 
universal sphere, the amount of matter in the sphere must 
be as its volume, or, which is the same ratio, as the cube 
of its radius. But any concentric layer of molecular forces 
is diminished in its repulsion in proportion to the number 
of layers that are between it and the centre, ^. e., in pro- 
portion to the cube of the radius of its own sphere, and 
thus each ensphered layer of molecules repels inversely as 
the cube of the radius of its own sphere; and as each 
molecule in the layer may be understood as the terminus 



THE PRINCIPLE OF GKAVITT. 153 

of a radius to tlie ensphered layer in whicli it is, so any 
molecule in a spherical layer, and thus any molecule in the 
whole globe, repels inversely as the cube of its distance 
from the centre. We have, therefore, the necessary law 
for repulsion — directly as quantity of matter^ and inversely 
as the cube of the distance. 

The force of attraction does not, like the force of repul- 
sion, act from the centre outwards on all sides, but is the 
reacting force against repulsion from every point in the 
sphere and coming back in a direct Hne to the centre. The 
aggregate of attraction in the entire sphere is equal to the 
amount of repulsion going out from the centre, for they 
equilibrate each other in the static position of every mole- 
cule. The repulsion is, however, from the point on all 
sides, but the attraction is from the point on one side only 
and working directly towards the centre. We may, then, 
take all the pomts in any plane passing through the centre, 
and we shall have the aggregate attraction of that plane in 
right lines to the centre. This will give the aggregate at- 
traction to be as the area, or, as the same thing, to be as 
the square of the radius. But any concentric circle in this 
area is diminished in attraction in proportion to the num- 
ber of concentric circles that may be made between it and 
the centre, i. e., in proportion to the square of the radius 
of itself, and therefore each possible circle in this area is 
attracted inversely as the square of its radius ; and as each 
molecule in the circumference of the concentric circle may 
be understood as the terminus of a radius of that circle, so 
any molecule in any concentric circle of the area, and 
therefore any molecule in the whole area, is attracted to 
the centre inversely as the square of its distance from the 



154: THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

centre. But this diminishing attraction from the centre 
vanishes wholly away in the circumference, and thus the 
attraction, between any two points separately and respect- 
ively in the same radius, is inversely as the square of the 
distance between them. 

This must be the law of attraction for all points in the 
radii of the same sphere, for they may all be taken in their 
relative planes and thereby subjected to the same principle. 
And this applies not merely to the points in the same 
globe, but relatively to all globes ; for all globes must have 
their repulsive and attractive forces balanced, and the in- 
tensity of these antagonisms constitutes their quantity of 
matter. As is the pressure at the centre such must be the 
magnitude of the ensphered forces, and thus such the 
length of radii, and the distance to which the force goes 
out from the centre, and the reacting attraction comes 
back. In all globes, therefore, the attractive force must 
be directly as the quantity of matter^ and inversely as the 
square of the distance. 

But this is true, again, not only of all globes in respect 
to each one's own portions of matter among themselves, 
but of all globes relatively to each other. Each globe 
must have its own density and thus its own distance for its 
force of gravity to act, and when any two globes come 
within each other's range of attraction so that the periph- 
eries of their spheres cut each other, the point of contact is 
at once a point of antagonism, and their acting central forces 
must so work this commencing antagonism as to push each 
one back upon itself and begin an ensphering anew, with 
the central point at the first point of contact, and the forces 
of each globe must be successively turned back in a hemi- 



THE PKINCIPLE OP FALLINQ BODIES. 155 

sphere within itself, and both together must form a new 
globe around this central point, and like " kindred drops 
both ultimately mingle into one." Such common point 
will become the common centre of attraction for each globe, 
and if the matter be fluid the two will make one globe, and 
if rigid, that point will still hold the two globes in unity 
and become their common centre of attraction, and must 
act under the above eternal principle. Any masses of mat- 
ter, less or more, must stand to each other as such two 
globes when they have their gravitating forces brought in 
contact, and their common centre of gravity must work 
after this eternal principle. 

10. The Peinciple of Falling Bodies. — ^The principle 
of gravity being attained, we may consider the force of 
attraction, though made up of the compounding of all the 
reactions in the globe, as if it were in the case of each 
molecule a separate and distinct force. Each molecule 
tends to the centre as if it had one simple activity of 
greater energy working toward the centre, and one activity 
of less energy working from the centre, and as if the side 
of the weaker energy was helped in sustaining the position 
of the force against th^ greater energy, by all the forces 
in the line between it and the centre. Take, therefore, 
any molecule of force in any part of the universal globe, 
except the central one, away from its position, and view it 
as if standing alone, and it could not be a static ; it could 
not hold its own place; it would be impossible that it 
should lie still. One side has the greater energy, and the 
molecule of force must move before that energy, since it 
cannot rest against the weaker energy in static position, 



156 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLE3 OF THE IJNIVESSE. 

until it can find some competent assistance to the weaker 
energy, and thus balance itself at rest. 

This idea of a force of unequal antagonism determines 
the generation of motion, in the advance of the greater 
energy through successive points. In this is, also, by the 
first principle of motion, the determination of it as uniform 
and rectihneal. This uniformity of velocity is on the con- 
dition that the excess of energy in the moving activity be 
perpetual and invariable. But the action of gravity, by 
which any aggregate of forces tend to the centre, though 
working in a right line cannot continue of uniform energy. 
There must be a constant accumulation, inasmuch as there 
is a constant transfer of new force with a perpetual reten- 
tion of what has already been received. A full conception 
of the foree of gravity gives occasion for determining this 
increment of motive-energy, and attaining the law by which 
the velocity of any body falling unhindered towards the 
centre must be regulated. 

"We may assume any point of force, or which will be 
the same thing, a body with its aggregate points of force, 
and if the forces in the points of the radius between this 
body and the great centre be supposed to be weakened in 
intensity, or those in the body augmented, that body must 
move through the fine of the radius towards the centre, 
and which is but saying that it must fall. This necessity 
for falling is seen in the excess of energy which every 
point in the sphere has, in that activity which is further 
from the centre and is working towards the centre. 
When the intervening pressure from the centre, which 
assisted and thus made equal to the other that activity 
which was nearest the centre, has been taken away, this 



THE PKINCIPLE OF FALLING BODIES. 157 

excess of energy must prevail and generate a movement in 
a right line before it. The one activity is not of sufficient 
energy that the other should rest itself against it, and both 
in their common point of antagonism must fall together. 
But such fall cannot be uniform, as in the steady force 
which determines the first law of motion. There, the ex- 
cess of energy, or moving force remains constant, and just 
avails to move at its own rate of velocity without accumu- 
lation. Here, it moves and adds itself perpetually. The 
excess of energy which generated the movement remains, 
and when at the next position nearer the centre, there is 
also the excess of energy that would have generated an 
original motion at that point, and thus the one degree of 
excess is retained and an additional degree received in the 
movement from this second position, and in this necessity 
of jDcrpetual increment is determined the law by which it 
must fall. 

Take then any body, and let it possess its degree of excess 
of energy on the side opposite the centre, and it must gravi- 
tate toward the centre. It must thus pass through its one 
measure of space, or height, which we will call H, in one 
moment. In passing through H, it has gained the excess 
of energy, or gravity, that was in the force occupying that 
space, and must therefore have now an excess of energy, 
or gravity, from the fall through H, that would make it 
fall the next moment through 2 H. And the original 
excess of energy, or gravity, with which it started is still 
retained, and will make it pass through one measure, or H, 
for this next moment as it did the first, so that the body 
for the second moment must pass through 3 H. At the 
end of the second moment, there are the three degrees 



158 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

of excess of energy, or gravity, retained, and the last one 
is doubled in the gain of its gravity, and the original excess 
vdth vrhich it started at first is also stiU there, so that the 
body must fall the next moment through 5 H. These five 
degrees and the last one doubled, and the old excess with 
which the body began to fall still constantly acting, must 
make the fall to be for the fourth moment through 7 H. 
These seven, and the last doubled, and the old excess, 
must again make the fifth moment to have a fall of 9 H. 
Thus onwards perpetually with each successive moment. 
The succeeding moment must have all the gravity of the 
preceding passing over in to it, and the last degree gained 
in the preceding moment must be doubled from the excess 
of energy gained and retained, and the old primitive excess 
is perpetually going along, so that each succeeding moment 
must continually gain two measures of space, or 2 H, above 
the preceding moment. This must be perpetual, so long 
as the body continues to fall. The principle is in the force 
of gravity itself, that must make an increment of two 
measures of descent, or as the same thing, two degrees of 
velocity, in each successive moment. The first moment 
will have one degree of velocity, the second moment three, 
the third moment five, the fourth seven, and thus on in 
arithmetical progression perpetually with an increment of 
two degrees to the moment. 

There must thus be at the beginning of each succes- 
sive moment, an excess of energy, that would carry the 
body through double the measures of height fallen in all 
the moments for the next succeeding equal number of mo- 
ments. Thus at the end of the second moment the body 
has fallen through 4 H, and for the next two moments 



THE PKINCIPLE OF FALLING BODIES. 159 

would fall through 8 H, and at the end of the thu'd mo- 
ment it has fallen through 9 H, and in three more moments 
would fall through 18 H, and at the end of the fourth 
moment it has fallen through 16 H, and in four moments 
more would fall through 32 H, and thus onwards perpet- 
ually. This will secure that, at each moment, the whole 
measures of space fallen, or the degrees of velocity 
attained, must be directly as the squares of the times, and 
which, in the opposite direction from the centre, must also 
be demanded by the law of gravity to be inversely as the 
square of the measure of space, or distance, or hi this case 
the velocity. Thus the first moment has fallen 1 H, which 
is the square of itself; the second moment 4 H, or the 
square of two ; the third moment 9 H, or the square of 
three; the fourth moment 16 H, or the square of four; 
and so onwards indefinitely. Thus the sum of the laws of 
falling bodies as determined by the principle of gravity is 
— that each moment must increase by two degrees of 
velocity — that at the end of each moment, a velocity is at- 
tained that must fall through double the space in the next 
equal number of moments — and that the velocity gained is 
directly as the squares of the times. 

The same principle, modified by the cutting off and 
neutralizing a part of the accumulating force, is found in 
the descent of bodies down an inclined plane^ and thus 
determines the law for the increment of momentum, and 
the counteracting force necessary to raise or balance 
weights upon an inclined plane. A body placed upon an 
inclined plane is acted upon by the same force for generat- 
ing motion, as in the above case of a body falhng freely. 
The excess of the antagonism tends to motion in the per- 



160 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

pendicular direction towards the centre of gravity. Bat 
the interposition of the plane, more or less obliquely, cuts 
off and neutralizes this force in its direct action, and pro- 
portioned to the angle of inclination dissolves and diverts, 
a portion of the force in the direction of the plane. If it 
had moved freely from the start in the perpendicular direc- 
tion, it would have been wholly within the former category 
of falling bodies, but now a proportion of the moving force 
is neutralized by the degree of incHnation given to the in- 
terposed plane, and only the remnant in the turned direc- 
tion is in action to give and gain an increment of momen- 
tum. The perpendicfiilar descent would begin with the 
whole energy of the excess of static force, and observe the 
laws of increment of momentum in its progress; the de- 
scent in the inclined plane begins with the remnant that is 
not neutralized by the interposition of the plane, and ob- 
serves the same law of increment of momentum in falling 
down the plane. The plane is the hypothenuse of a right 
angled triangle, of which one of the sides containing the 
right angle is the perpendicular, and the other containing 
side is the base of the plane. The times and proportions 
of increment of momentum are, thus, as the proportion of 
the perpendicular to the hypothenuse. The descent must 
be through the whole plane to gain the increment of rela- 
tive momentum, which the body falling freely gains in de- 
scending through the perpendicular. 

It thus follows that a proportionally smaller body, fall- 
ing freely, may be made to balance a larger body falling 
down an inclined plane. Two bodies, so attached that the 
smaller shall act through a line in the j)lane in opposition 
to the descending force, and left to fall freely down the 



THE PRINCIPLE OF FALLING BODIES. 161 

perpendicular, must equilibrate when equal momenta 
are gained in equal times. The disparity in the quantity 
of matter of the bodies balancing, will be as the difference 
in the rate of movement ; the less velocity on the plane 
being the index of the lesser increment of momentum in 
the same space, and the greater velocity down the per- 
pendicular being the index of the greater increment of 
momentum in the same time. Here is no gain of force, 
but the economy of substituting a less force for a greater 
period of working ; but this economy is, however, of great 
moment, and may be used to an indefinite extent. The 
universe of matter may readily be conceived as thus bal- 
anced by a grain. The principle of the inclined plane is in 
the wedge, which may be made to incline on one or on 
both sides, and in the screw, as a spirally inclined plane, and 
thus all these so called mechanical poioers find their full 
explication in the conception of momentum as attamed 
solely through the insight of the reason in the law of fall- 
ing bodies, connected with the conceptions of momentum 
and virtual velocities. 

Applying the same representative of the increment of 
velocity for the increment of force which generates this 
velocity, in what is termed virtual velocity, we may in the 
like manner attain the principle of the lever, as a mechani- 
cal power, in all the ways of its application. If we conceive 
the diameter of a circle to be an inflexible rod resting upon 
its centre, and that masses of matter of equal quantity are 
affixed to the two extremities, it is plain that they must 
balance each other, inasmuch as their momenta, i. e., their 
quantities of matter and vu'tual velocities, are equal. But 
if we shorten one semi-diameter, or slide the rod on the 
11 



162 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

centre to make its two ends unequally distant from it, the 
virtual velocity in the longer, it is at once clear, must be 
the greater. To preserve the equality of momenta, there 
must be a corresponding augmentation of the quantity of 
matter on the shorter, or diminution on the longer arm of 
the rod. This supposed rod is the lever, and it is evident 
that the same principle is involved here as in the inclined 
plane, with a different phase only in its presentation. The 
inclined plane brought the greater weight to the same 
height by a longer way^ and thus gave opportunity for the 
accumulation of the excess of force in the smaller weight ; 
and the lever brings the greater weight to the same height 
through a longer ^er^■oc?, and this gives also opportunity for 
the accumulation of the excess of force, and thus an in- 
crease of virtual velocity to the smaller weight. 

The principle of the lever is in the wheel and axle, and 
also in the pulley, and these together may be indefinitely 
compounded in cogs and bands and tackle-blocks, and all 
together may be combined with the varieties of the m- 
clined plane, and thus give endless conveniences, but in no 
case any creation and only a transferred accumulation of 
power. 

11. The Pein^ciple of Magnetism. — The central force 
from which the universal globe of matter is generated, it 
has been seen, necessarily induces a tendency to motion in 
two opposite directions equally balancing each other, viz., 
propulsion from the centre and a reaction in each pomt of 
force which presses back in every way towards the centre. 
A careful insight into the working of this central force will 
also detect another virtual movement in its necessary prin- 
ciples, and which, when fully apprehended, will be recog- 



THE PRINCIPLE OF MAGNETISM. 163 

nized as filling out a full idea of the force of magnetism. 
A globe, so formed, must be a magnet. 

If two balls of melted metal were brought in contact, 
and gently pressed so as gradually to flatten each up to 
their centres, a peculiar process would necessarily be passed 
through in this changing of forms. When just brought in 
contact, and touching at but one point in their circumfer- 
ences, the antagonism would be as that of two simple agen- 
cies. One ball would not at all press itself into the other, 
but each would turn back the opposite ball into its own 
body. As the pressure went on, each ball would have a 
retorsion of itself within, of just the same size and shape as 
that which had been displaced from the flattened segment, 
and when the centres should meet there would be a ball 
within of the size of the original balls, of which one hemi- 
sphere would be from the retorted portion of one of the 
original balls, and the other hemisphere from the portion 
turned back in the other. If the original balls had been of 
two different metals of equal densities, or of two different 
colors, one hemisphere of the new ball would be of one 
metal, or color, and the other hemisphere of the other. 

To make this the more manifest, where we may follow 
the forces in their sensible indices, we drop again a 
stone into a lake. As the circle of undulations expands, at 
a little distance from the centre we will conceive an obsta- 
cle interposing itself, as a rock standing upright from the 
bottom. The periphery of the circular undulation, just as 
it touches this obstacle, is the index of the simple agency 
in one direction, as now acting^ in a rioht line from the 
point where the stone descended, and the resisting rock 
may represent the other simple agency at the point of 



164: THE ETERNAL PKINCIPLES OF THE IJNIVEESE. 

counteraction. When the forces thus meet, the action and 
reaction being Opposite and equal, the tendency at first 
■\YOuld be to turn the force in a direct line back upon itself 
towards the point from whence it came where the stone 
fell, and give its index in a refluent wave in this right line. 
But as the re-agency goes back it gathers additional resist- 
ance in the attempted refluent wave, and which would per- 
petually increase in each moment of the regressus. It thus 
at once supervenes that the action and reaction cannot be 
opposite and equal, in a point removed back from the rock 
towards the place of the fallen stone, but the resistance to 
go back must be greater away from the rock than at the 
rock. The law for the compounding offerees and motions 
at once controls, and the result is, not a refluent action in a 
direct line, but an action spreading each way from the rock 
on the side of the counter-agency, over the surface of the 
lake. The first stroke of the outgoing wave in the circum- 
ference of the circle upon the rock makes its refluent wave, 
and the next stroke also its refluent, expanding as it flows 
back with just the force in the aggregate that had brought 
the circle up, and thus the result is, a return of just so 
much of the circle as would unimpeded have gone on by 
the rock now within itself on the hither side of the rock, 
and this action may be perpetuated until the refluent has 
equalled and exhausted aU the up-coming waves. What 
has gone back is that which would have gone on, and it 
has now registered itself in the matter on one side of the 
rock instead of the matter that lies on the other side, and 
thus the real thing, as force, has moved and fixed itself in 
a retorted position. If the rock could have been the force 
of another circle coming up in antagonism, and they could 



THE PEINCIPLE OF MAGNETISM. 165 

have been made directly to meet and counterwork without 
sKpping past in the matter that brought them together, 
there would, as in the melted metal above, have been the 
formation of two inner semi-circles, or if the action had 
been sufficiently deep in the lake, two inner half-spheres, 
and each having only the force in its own hemisphere that 
had been pushed back by the force that has gone into the 
other. Thus two circles, or spheres, make a third, with 
one-half within and of the one, and the other half within 
and of the other. 

And here, it is to be noted, precisely the same thing 
must occur in the generation of forces into a sphere about 
the point of two countervailing single activities. One turns 
the other back upon itself, and the accumulating resistance 
in a right line necessitates a compounded movement and 
fixing of positions every way in a sphere about the point 
first brought in contact, and one-half of this globe is gener- 
ated in the forces on one side, made by the return upon 
itself of one simple activity, and the other half by a return 
upon itself of the other simple activity. 

And here it is practicable to the eye of the reason to 
follow these moving activities, and see just how they must 
result in fixing the matter which they generate, or in leav- 
ing their register as an independent accumulation of 
forces, in any preceding matter that might be given, as a 
medium for indicating their currents. If we take the case 
of two circles in a lake, there might be conceived two 
floating rods lying as a tangent to each circle, and in the 
same straight line with each other on the peripheries of 
the same sides from the centre. As we view these circles 
and the rods pointing towards each other, we might say of 



166 THE ETEKNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE FNIYEESE. 

the one on the right hand that its point was the boreal, 
and of the one on the left hand that its point was the aus- 
tral, in reference each to those points in the undulating cir- 
cumference of their own cii'cles as about to touch each 
other. K we now conceive these expanding circles to 
meet, and make each the waves of the other to be refluent 
within itself, we shall have a new circle made up of two 
semicircles from each, and within each, about this point 
of contact. K we should conceive of the augmentation of 
this new inner circle, by the approach of the original cir- 
cles together, until their centres should meet in this point 
of their fii'st contact, and which has become the centre of 
the new inner circle, then the floating rods would be 
brought together at the circumference where the half of 
the original circles now meet and cut each other, and the 
boreal point in one, and the austral point in the other, 
would each be retorted and turn each the opposite way in 
the refluent semi-circles of the new circle formed within 
and from the original two circles. At just the point in the 
diameter where the two semi-circles now make one circle, 
the two rods would be as one, and having both a boreal 
and an austral point, and lying as a tangent to the circle at 
right angles to the diameter. Thus with a circle on the 
surface of a lake ; and the same result would occur in the 
sphere, which might be formed by two refluent spheres 
down within the lake. And this analogy is also perfect in 
reference to the space-filling matter, which first enspheres 
itself about an original point of counteraction. The hemi- 
spheres must have a hi-polar force at the equator. 

This index rod, which now may lie on any part of the 
equator, or, as the same thing, at right angles to any 



THE PKINCIPLE OF MAGNETISM. 167 

equatorial diameter, will lie parallel to the axis of the 
sphere, and may be made to point indifferently either way, 
inasmuch as it is really the identification of the two orig- 
inal rods, and may be either a boreal or an austral point 
towards the same pole. The force, which registers itself 
in this index, is a retorsion on each side of the equatorial 
ring towards the poles, and thus directly on this ring is 
the mutual and neutralizing limit between the reactions, 
which must be indifferent to either. But as there is a de- 
parture from this mutual limit either way, the refluent 
force must take it on its own side, and control it by its 
own movement. 

How it must determine its direction is plain by careful 
inspection. At the equator, the forces are on each side at 
right angles to the diameter and parallel to the axis of the 
globe, while at the poles, the forces are in a point reac- 
tionary to the central antagonism, and thus up and down 
within the axis. The directions of the force on the side of 
the equator is in a parallel line with the axis, and the 
direction of the force at the pole is towards the centre in 
the line of the axis. The direction of all the forces on the 
side of the equator are thus to meet in the common polar 
point, and become turned in that point to a line in the 
axis towards the centre, and there must in this be com- 
pounded the forces which work from the equator, and the 
conjoint force in the polar point which works towards the 
centre. This compounded movement, it is plain, will be a 
perpetual turning of the index from a tangent to the cir- 
cumference at the equator, to a direction that must go 
athwart the circumference, and thus a perpetually increas- 
ing dip must be secured, making it at right angles to the 



168 THE ETEENAL PEIN-CIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

axis at the distance of 45°, and in the direction of the axis, 
towards the centre when over the pole. This will be the 
same with the austral dip on the boreal side of the globe, 
and with the boreal dip on the austral side. The forces 
of the sphere necessarily determine for it a magyietic polar 
direction and dip on each side of the equator. 

"We may also look immediately into the operation of 
the sphere-forming process as given in section 8th, and 
we shall attahi a similar, and even more comprehensive re- 
sult. 

The central antagonism turns each its opposite simple 
activity back upon itself, and thereby generates the polar 
points; these hold the energizing of the activities from 
pushing further back in a straight Hne, and thus the equa- 
torial ring is at once elevated j and then the perpetuation 
of the central energizing pushes the simple activities in 
each point of the equatorial ring each way, in meridional 
lines, quite up to the poles, and all such meridional lines in 
their contiguity make a spherical layer of molecular forces 
over each hemisphere, and in this continuation of working, 
the globe grows to its determined size. We will take 
these points of molecular forces in the equatorial ring, and 
subject their determined progress to a careful insight. 

Each point of force in the equatorial ring is an antago- 
nism of two simple activities counter-working each other 
in a direction parallel to the axis, and thus the whole equa- 
torial plane is made up of antagonist forces, all working in 
their directions of counter-agency parallel with the central 
antagonism, for the aggregate of points in the whole equa- 
torial plane are but the edges of the concentric layers as 
they meet in their equators. The points nearest the centre 



THE PRINCIPLE OF MAGNETISM. 169 

will be in the equatorial edge of the smaller, and those 
further from the centre will be in the equatorial edges of 
the larger spherical layers. If, then, we take any point in 
the equatorial plane, it will be a point of force in the equa- 
torial edge of some spherical layer, and will balance itself 
back upon the polar point in the direction of tlie merid- 
ional line, and by the equilibration of forces that lie in and 
all through that line. We take, then, any such point, and 
consider it as a molecule of matter that has its polar direc- 
tion in the line of its two counter working simple activities, 
and which must be parallel with the antagonism of the 
central point, and with the axis of the universal sphere. 
The central point works back upon the polar point in an 
exact Une of action and reaction through aU the interven- 
ing points, and thus each molecule is in the same polar 
direction as aU the others in the axis on its side of the 
centre, and all on one side of the centre of opposite polar 
directions to all the molecules on the other side of the 
centre. But, while the central point thus works exactly 
back in molecules of the same polar directions, no point 
out of the centre can work back upon the pole in mole- 
cules of the same exact polar directions. The point out 
of the centre, and in the equatorial plane, begins with a 
molecule that has its polar direction parallel with the 
centre, but the polar point against which it balances has 
its polar direction towards the centre and in the Mne of the 
axis ; this beginning equatorial point must thus have the 
direction turned gradually and completely about, in the 
molecules of the meridional line, by the time the action has 
reached the polar point and balanced all the molecules in 
the meridional Ime upon it. The equatorial molecule wiU 



ITO THE ETEENAL PKINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

have its polar direction parallel with the axis; the polar 
molecule will have its polar direction in the axis towards 
the centre ; and thus all molecules in the meridional line 
between the equatorial and the polar molecules must have 
their polar directions conformed to their respective posi- 
tions in this meridional Hne. The next from the equatorial 
must converge from a parallel to a slight inclination of 
polar direction towards the axis, and the next to that a 
little more, till midway, or at the 45th degree, the polar 
direction of the molecule must be at right angles with the 
axis, and so onward turning about to the j^ole, where the 
molecule resting on the polar point must have a polar 
direction turned completely round and working towards 
the centre in the line of the axis. 

This principle of polar direction in the meridional mole- 
cules must necessarily determine the magnetic dip, and this 
must begin from a parallel with the axis in the equatorial 
plane throughout, and terminate through the meridional 
line by a direction to the centre in the axis at the pole, 
having in that distance completely retrograded its former 
direction. The opposite poles must have their magnetic 
dip the converse of each other through all the molecules of 
their resj^ective hemispheres. 

Bring, then, two magnets together, and force their 
spheres of polar action to invade and interpenetrate each 
other, the similar poles of each would have their molecular 
action and dip opposite to each other, and each towards its 
own centre, and they must repel each other; while the 
opposite poles so interfering would have the molecular 
action and dip conformed to each other, and they must 
therefore attract one the other. The molecular action and 



THE PEINOIPLE OF ELECTRICITY. 171 

dip is neutralized in the equator, and thus mutual attrac- 
tion and repulsion must there be neutralized, and the re- 
spective attractions and repulsions must augment to their 
maximum in the interfering poles. 

Thus the equatorial and polar counteractions determine 
the necessary laws of magnetism, as the central action and 
reaction determine the n ecessary laws of gravity. 

12. The Pbinciple of Electeicitt. — ^The balanced ac- 
tion, between the equatorial plane and the poles, which 
holds every molecule in its place of static rest through 
every meridional line of every spherical layer, is the great 
principle of magnetism ; the interruption of this continued 
static rest in any portion of the superficial matter, and the 
consequent tension in the interrupted parts to recover 
themselves and restore the balance, is the great principle 
of electricity. This pressure from the equator to the pole, 
and in the stability of the polar point a reciprocal pressure 
back from the pole upon the equator, we have now to con- 
ceive may be interrupted in particular places by various 
agencies. Those several interrupting agencies will be here- 
after examined in their determining principles, such as light 
and heat and chemical decomposition, and to which may 
be added mechanical friction, the principle of which has 
been already apprehended ; but these causes and their oc- 
casions of working in the interruption of the magnetic force 
need not here be regarded. We need only anticipate, that 
causes and occasions will occur to break up this continuity 
of equal reciprocal agency between the equatorial plane 
and the polar points, and that thus the molecules will in 
some places be turned in their polar directions away from 
their proper lines in the magnetic meridians, and in this 



172 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

anticipation we shall find all that is necessary for clearly 
attaining the grand principles which must determine all the 
laws in the experimental facts of electricity. 

Some substances, then, in the ongoing of the forces of 
nature, must be supposed to be brought into combination, 
that will admit of their respective component molecules 
being more or less easily turned from their proper magnetic 
polar direction, as would be their natural position in the 
magnetic meridian, and when thus deranged, some of these 
substances will be very slow and stubborn in permitting 
their molecules to come again into their proper magnetic 
arrangement. Let such deranged substances occupy any 
place in the sphere between the equator and one of the poles, 
and they must at once interrupt the reciprocal action be- 
tween the equator and the pole and sunder the magnetic me- 
ridional continuity. There will then necessarily at once en- 
sue a tension in the equatorial force to overcome and remove 
this interruption, and to rest itself again, in the continued 
line of magnetic reciprocity, upon the resisting static force 
that comes up towards it from the pole. Such struggle 
and tension to overcome this interruption is the awakened 
and active force of electricity. It is really the magnetic 
force struggling against interposing and interrupting de- 
rangement. Magnetism and electricity differ, as static 
polar rest differs from the tension that struggles to re- 
move an interruption that it may again be at rest. 

Now such tension must manifestly have its two conspir- 
ing directions ; the equatorial force will go out positively 
and actively to find its reciprocal static point and rest itself 
against it, and this static polar point, unsustained by its 
positive antagonism on its equatorial side, can only negar 



THE PEINCIPLE OF ELECTRICITY. 1Y3 

tively struggle for such sustaining reciprocity, by maintain- 
ing itself against the central antagonism that would go be- 
yond it in fixing a new polar point, and force this central 
activity to go up in the equator and come down in the 
meridional line to the pole, and there meet and support 
itself in counteraction. There must, therefore, be two 
forces; one positively struggling to move forward, the 
other negatively struggling not to move back. "We shall 
therefore have two kinds of electricity, properly the 2^osi- 
tive and the negative; and no interruption to the polar 
force can anywhere occur, but it must at once induce this 
positive and negative tension. The deranged substance, 
interrupting the magnetic continuity, has its molecular 
polarity all the wrong way, and each molecule turned so 
that the end of its axis which should be towards the pole is 
now toward the equator, and thus this whole interrupting 
substance is turned with its positive towards the positive 
tension that struggles against it, and its negative towards 
the polar negative that holds itself not to go back, and 
therefore, the positive tension must push or repel opposing 
positive tension, and negative tension must stand against 
opposite negative tension; and, on the other hand, the 
positive must constantly push into the negative that is 
before it, and the negative constantly receive the positive 
that comes up to it ; and thus the fact in experience must 
ever be that opposite electricities will attract and similar 
electricities repel each other. This is similar in expression 
but not in principle to the attraction and repulsion of mag- 
netism. In magnetism the whole magnet is a unit, and 
the equator or middle pomt neutral, and the polar forces 
and dips are opposite to each other on opposite sides of the 



174: THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

equatorial plane, and thus here the principle is, that simi- 
lar dips and forces must throw out, and opposite dips and 
forces must crowd in each other; but in electricity the 
whole has no unity, for this has been broken up and the 
entire force of electricity is to recover it, and the opposite 
electricities work in the same directions, one positively and 
the other negatively, to join and restore the unity. There 
is no centre to the electric tension ; all is in one direction, 
and hence any division of an electric cannot make the 
parts to be now complete wholes, as in a divided magnet, 
but must still be each one only another fragment of the 
whole. 

It is also further manifest, if any substance may be 
made to penetrate this deranged molecular substance that 
interrupts the magnetic continuity, and such penetrating 
substance have all its molecules facile and ready to come 
to their proper polarity, that this penetrating substance, 
uniting the positive and negative electricities through the 
interrupting molecules, will at once bridge over the im- 
passable chasm, and in its continuous polarity bring the 
positive on one side to rest itself against, and equilibrate 
with, the negative on the other side. Such facile continua- 
tion of the common polarity would be a properly conduct- 
ing substance, and all such substances that when deranged 
in molecular polarity readily recovered themselves, and 
arranged their molecules by a slight tension urging thereto 
according to the magnetic meridian, would properly be 
known as eleGtricdl eoyiduetors. The absence of conduc- 
tors might leave the electric tension to be permanently re- 
sisted, or this tension to so accumulate that it should burst 
violently through the interrupting obstacle, and restore the 



THE PEINCIPLE OF HEAT. 175 

equilibrium in a destructive explosion, while the interven- 
tion of the conductor might restore the balance by a grad- 
ual and silent passage. 

13. The PEn^ciPLE op Heat. — We have traced the 
necessary working of the antagonist force according to its 
own intrinsic nature and constitution, and have found from 
it the principles respectively of Motion, Sphericity, Gravity, 
Falling bodies, Magnetism, and Electricity. But the an- 
tagonist force does not work alone, the diremptive force 
perpetually works in and with it, and its generated results 
keep equal pace with those of the antagonist working 
through the universal sphere. The diremptive working 
does not hinder the antagonist activity in the securing of 
the above principles, but many other results are demanded 
in a completed nature of thmgs, and which no mere antag- 
onist forces could supply, and which can only be secured in 
the working of the diremptive force according to its nature 
and constitution. We now, therefore, fix the insight of the 
reason directly on the diremptive force working at the cen- 
tre, and find what must come of it. In it we shall first find 
the principle of Heat. 

While the antagonist force generates a sphere by a per- 
petual accumulation of concentric spherical layers, the di- 
remptive force will work itself in between aU these concen- 
tric layers and dispart them by its own peculiar energy. 
The diremptive activity is in unity with the antagonist 
activity from the first, and both work on coetaneously, and 
while the antagonism secures the results we have already 
traced both unhelped and unhindered by the diremptive 
working, yet could not the diremptive activity secure any 
manifested results separate from its combination with the 



176 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

working antagonism. Its action is perpetually away from 
itself in every limit that might be taken, and this perpetual 
going off in simple activities, on each side of any limit in 
vi^hich it might be set to work, could only issue in continual 
self-dissipation, and emptying itself from the limit with no 
capability of accumulations at the limit. But in working 
within and against the simple activities of the antagonist 
force, it at once attains consistency and persistency in space. 
Its outgoings meet the antagonist incomings, and thereby 
generate new counteractions, in which there are other de- 
termining principles as immutable as any we have yet at- 
tained in the ensphering and space-filling antagonisms. 

The primitive central antagonism is conceived as two 
simple activities meeting and counter-working in a common 
limit, and we now conceive the diremption to be a begin- 
ning in that common limit and sending out two simple op- 
posite activities from it. The two mutually and necessarily 
determine the direction of each other's activity. The an- 
tagonism being first, would wake the diremption within it 
to spread each way in divellency ; and the diremption being 
first, would wake the antagonism on each side of it to push 
together in counter-agency ; and both being in unity of 
agency, would counterwork each other ; and thus in any 
method of possible communion, the antagonist and diremp- 
tive forces must work upon and against each other. From 
the very nature of the agency in such combination, we may 
see, moreover, that the result must be a perpetual palpita- 
tion, or systole and diastole play between them of a very 
peculiar and specific kind. Keeping in mind the order of 
the sphere-forming process, so minutely and carefully fol- 
lowed out in the antagonist working, we will now as care 



THE PKINCIPLE OF HE^T. 177 

fiiUy trace this process of diremptive working through the 
whole sphere, and which must necessarily be in the con- 
verse order of movement and result, inasmuch as the di- 
remption cannot work and manifest itself at all save in an 
antithesis to the antagonism. 

We fix on the limit in the central antagonist force where 
act meets act in counteraction, and in that limit we now 
find also a diremption. The antagonisms pushed each 
back upon themselves, and made two polar points of force 
in a line on opposite sides of the limit in which the simple 
activities had met, and these points, being thus taken and 
held by the newly engendered forces in them, forbade the 
antagonisms now to go further back on opposite sides in a 
line, and by the second principle of motion necessitated a 
rising out on all sides in an equatorial plane or ring, mid- 
way between the polar points and transverse to the axis. 
Even so, in converse efiect, must this diremptive action 
traverse the same course. In meeting the simple activities 
of the antagonism and pushing back upon them, it does the 
same work on each that each one was doing on the other, 
adding this energy of the diremptive working to the former 
pushing of the antagonisms, as it disparts itself each way 
while standing between them. This disparting of the di- 
remptive action in the very limit of the meeting antago- 
nisms lengthens the line in the direction of the polar points, 
until the static resistance of the polar points equilibrates 
the diremptive action, and so loosens or disparts the antag- 
onism at its central limit that the diremption must now 
turn, as the antagonism did, to a direction transverse to its 
first action. This necessitates a pushing out against the 
equatorial ring of the first antagonist layer from the central 
12 



178 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

point, and a passing between that layer and the central 
point, and separating the antagonist layer from the central 
point by interposing a diremptive layer. This diremptive 
action then again pushes out the antagonist polar points, 
both by the central working and the working in the layer 
without the centre, and this loosens the first antagonist 
layer in its equatorial ring and passes again transversely 
through, and against the next layer in its equator. 

As then, the equatorial antagonisms must flow down on 
each side in the meridional lines, and at length rest from 
aU ways upon the polar poiuts, and thus complete their 
circuit and equilibrate the movement of the antagonism, 
even so must the central diremptive working pass through 
the disparted equatorial antagonisms, and down on each 
side between the outer and inner meridians ui the concen- 
tric antagonist spherical layers, and occupy the disparted 
space between the layers in each hemisphere from the 
equator to the poles. As then, again, the equilibrated 
movement of the antagonism through the equatorial ring 
down against the poles has stopped all further passage of 
the generating force in 'that dii'ection, and the central 
working must push the antagonisms out each way again in 
new polar points, to be resisted by them and turned again 
through the equatorial plane in new meridional lines, mak- 
ing new concentric spherical layers in each hemisphere; 
just so must the diremptive force run over again its circuit, 
and elongate the polar line, and loosen the equatorial an- 
tagonisms, and pass through and expand the space between 
the concentric layers at the equator, and then pass down in 
each hemisphere disparting the layers to the poles. Thus, 
while the sphere is engendered and augmented by the per- 



THE PRINCIPLE OF HEAT. 179 

petual working of the antagonist force, it is also continually 
disparted and filled in every concentric layer by the di- 
remptive force. 

Let it also be carefully noted, that as the diremptive 
action elongates the axis by pressing back the polar points 
and filling in the centre by its own force, it makes the 
sphere to take on a prolate form; and that as it passes 
through the disparted antagonisms at the equator, and 
presses out against the spherical layer beyond, it pushes 
out the equatorial region and thus makes the sphere to 
take on an oblate form; and that therefore a perpetual 
pulsation through every spherical layer must be kept up 
with every diremptive palpitation of the centre. When 
the whole sphere is formed, and all its concentric layers 
filled in with the diremptive forces, if then the diremptive 
action keep on at the centre, the space between the layers 
being a plenum, the throb at the centre is felt all through 
to the circumference instantaneously, except so far as the 
yielding and elastic spring of the diremptive substance may 
furnish occasion for a propagated and thus a successive 
motion. As the diremptive movement passes in the equa- 
torial plane across the margins of the concentric layers of 
each hemisphere that meet in this plane, the oscillation of 
the layer must make its vibration of every molecule in 
the layer, and thus successively of every molecule in the 
sphere. 

• Now, this diremptive force is heat in its essential being, 
and the principle of its working must determine all its phe- 
nomenal facts and their laws. In its 'combination with the 
antagonist forces it becomes fixed, and goes to the compo- 
sition of the new substance in a static state, and of course 



180 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNTVEESE. 

induces no yibrations, and imparts no sensible heat, except 
as in chemical dissolution it becomes liberated. Its neces- 
sity of working in every part of its being is by a disparting 
and divellent action, on occasion of any force within or 
against which it may exert its diremptive energy, and thus 
must expand every substance into which it enters in its 
free state. It may be made to permeate any substance so 
as only to fiU in and occupy all the interstices between and 
around the molecules, without at all parting or separating 
the molecules themselves, and as thus held in a quiescent 
state it win be latent heat. It may escape from one sub- 
stance through the intervening medium, and in its passage 
through a fluid medium it must follow its order of move- 
ment as already given in a vibratory process, and as passing 
out in vibrations all ways from a thermal source it will give 
radiated heat. While the same substance is radiating its 
heat, it may also be receiving the radiations from other 
substances, and such recej)tion of radiated heat will give 
absorbed heat. Some of the radiations meeting a sub- 
stance that absorbs with difficulty, must pass off from it and 
give reflected heat. The principles determining reflection, 
refraction, diffraction and polarLzation are all here included, 
and may all be exposed in experimental facts, showing that 
the laws in the facts were all necessitated in an immutable 
principle. If the diremptive action not only presses be- 
tween and about the molecules so as to expand the sub- 
stance, but goes so far as to loosen and thoroughly isolate 
the molecules that they may fr-eely pass by and over each 
other, we shall have thermal fluidity y' a more intense 
dfremptive action, separating the molecules from each 
other and forcing the particles asunder at some distance, 



CHEMICAL PRINCIPLES. 181 

will make thermal evaporation ; and a greater intensity of 
heat that breaks up the substantial combination of the 
molecules themselves, and violently sunders the constitu- 
tional forces of the materials, will be combustion. 

In the universal sphere, the diremptive and antagonist 
activities will equilibrate, when the working at the centre 
is just balanced by the reactions from the outlying spheri- 
cal layers, and the diremptive and antagonist forces run 
each their own circuit without invading and breaking up 
one the other. In this state of antagonist and diremptive 
equilibration we shall have the material universe in that 
state that may be known as the primitive ether. 

14. Chemical Peinciples. — It is not possible that an- 
tagonist forces can come into any combinations and thus 
form chemical compounds by themselves alone. The only 
manner of their working is by ensphering themselves about 
a central point, and the entire globe of such forces must be 
of smgle and homogeneous molecules throughout. But 
with the conjoint working of a diremptive force in a con- 
verse direction to the antagonist working, there is full 
occasion given for chemical combinations, and indeed a 
necessity that such should ultimately be effected. When 
the diremptive action has diffused its disparting forces 
between all the layers of the universal sphere, and there is 
an equilibration of both the antagonist and dii'emptive 
forces in their reactions upon the centre, and thus the uni- 
versal sphere has completed its full destined size, there may 
still be a continued generation of both these forces at the 
centre, and instead of augmenting the size of the sphere 
they will only serve to fill in and increase its density. 

When the exact balance is gained, the spherical layers 



182 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEKSE. 

of the antagonist forces are not only disparted from each 
other by the infusion of the heat-force in its layers between 
them, but there is the loosening also of the molecules in 
the layers of the antagonist forces by the permeating heat- 
force, so that they just maintain their magnetic polar direc- 
tions in their meridional lines, and are at the same time 
just ready to dispart and pass over and by each other in a 
movable fluid state. The whole mass is just loosened, 
molecule from molecule, and may be called a fluid, only the 
molecules are all yet quiescent and not flowing. If, then, 
the antagonist and diremptive agencies keep on in exact 
equihbration of their generating activities, there must be a 
perpetual going out of new forces of both kinds into the 
universal sphere, but as the antagonist action is just dis- 
solved by the diremptive action, there can be no crowding 
back of the polar points and extendiug of the axis by a 
retorsion of the antagonist simple activities upon them- 
selves, and as there can be secured no extended static in 
this direction, so there can be no pushing out of the trans- 
verse equatorial ring and the successive enlargement of the 
sphere ; and for the same reason there can be no prolate 
and dilate movement in the going out of the diremptive 
accumulations, and thus no filling in successively of the 
heat-force any further between the spherical layers. The 
consistency of the layers is all dissolved, and thus extension 
and vibration must wholly cease. And yet generation of 
both forces goes on, and flows out from the central point 
into the sphere, and can thus only thicken and make denser 
the primitive ether without extendmg its volume. The 
mass only becomes a thicker fluid, without yet any flow. 
But without at all following here the determinations 



CHEMICAL PRINCIPLES. 183 

of such accumulation and thickening of the primitive ether, 
which will find its more fit opportunity hereafter, it is 
sufficiently manifest that in such movement and accumu- 
lation of forces, there must come new and varied combina- 
tions. The antagonist and diremptive activities meet each 
other, and interwork and dissolve and counterwork each 
other in many new varieties of action, and we have opened 
at once all the necessities for chemical affinities, chemical 
equivalents, and chemical combinations and decomposi- 
tions. 

If one molecule of the antagonist forces be exactly 
balanced by the working of a diremptive force in the very 
limit of its simple activities, we have a new chemical atom; 
entirely a new substance ; and competent to stand out alone 
in complete static individuality. So, if two antagonist 
forces are just balanced by a diremptive force between 
them, or a number of antagonist forces around a central 
diremption, or a varied number of limited diremptive activ- 
ities by an equiUbrating number, intensity, and direction 
of antagonisms; in all such cases there comes the neces- 
sity for all chemical laws. The forces and single activities 
cannot equilibrate and hold each other in static rest with- 
out inducing the whole doctrine of chemical equivalents, 
and only such forces can run to each other's counteracting 
help and support as stand in the line of reciprocal activi- 
ties, and which must introduce the whole doctrine of chem- 
ical affinities. 

Simple chemical substances will not be single antagonist 
forces, but such combinations of the antagonist and diremp- 
tive activities, in their most simple working, as no applica- 
tion of other combinations can unloose and decompose. 



184: THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

The combining forces must come together in specific pro- 
portions, and continue in combination until neutralizing or 
countervailing forces again destroy their cohesion. The 
combination cannot be a substance that shall give the 
qualities of either ingredient, for the combined forces lose 
aU their former mode of activity, and together make a 
third thing that annihilates the old modes of activity in 
the new. As the combination wholly suspended and for 
the time indeed destroyed the elemental forces in their 
old mode of action, so an analysis of this substance must 
destroy the force that constituted it, and give occasion 
again for the elementary activities to work after their 
former manner. 

The perpetuated working at the centre must induce an 
elementary chaos of prepared forces, that on occasion must 
come together in chemical combinations. 

15. Cetstalline Peinciples. — The free working of 
the antagonist activities can only form globes which have 
their single axis ; and the chemical compositions that may 
press their molecules together in a new force, thereby 
making a new substance, and which may harden it to a 
body in a rigid state, can only have the one axis which the 
equipoise of gravity must give to it through its centre. 
The forces in mere chemical affinities can make combina- 
tions only in bipolar and uniaxial bodies, and which poles 
and axis must be determined by the aggregate of gravi- 
tating force, and not by any principle of the combining 
affinities. 

But in the converse activities of the antagonist and 
diremptive forces, it is plain that there must be occasions 
for their mutual action and reaction in directly tranverse 



CRYSTALLINE PKINCIPLES. 185 

directions. The diremptive force may stand between and 
balance two antagonist forces that press together, and this 
in a transverse direction at right-angles, or at any oblique 
angle, and such composition of forces must make a nu- 
cleus, that in process shall build up around it a cube or a 
rhombohedron ; and if the balancing diremptive force grad- 
ually and regularly diminish as the combination goes on, 
it will necessitate the cutting off of the solid angles of the 
before-mentioned geometrical sohds, and make them to be- 
come right angled or rhomboidal octahedrons. Thus may 
any variety of regular geometrical solids be built up by 
accordant forces in composition, that shall work towards 
each other in such directions and degrees as to balance 
themselves in the axes of such solids. The whole principle 
of crystallogeny is in this combination of heat with polar 
matter, or the bringing together of these converse forces 
in such ratios and directions as will secure multipolar and 
multiaxial combinations. The whole geometrical solid is 
determined in its faces and edges and solid angles by the 
axes and polarity which the working forces secure, and the 
degrees of energy respectively exerted. And inasmuch as 
the working forces must also determine the superposition 
of the facial layers, so the same crystal must always have 
its permanent determined planes of cleavage, and the spe- 
cific polish of the faces. 

The gravitating force has the principle which deter- 
mines the fluid rain to fall in spherical drops, and the 
crystalline principle determines the falling snow to arrange 
itself in star-shaped needles, and the hail has these con- 
gealed in diverse polyhedrons. 



186 THE ETEE'JSfAL PRINCIPLES OE THE UNIVERSE. 

16. The Peinciple of Woeld-eoemations. — The at- 
tained conception of the universal sphere in its generated 
and accumulating ethereal matter, and the perpetual work- 
ing of the central antagonist and diremptive activities con- 
stantly making new chemical compositions, and thus also 
new substances in nature, and moving the primitive matter 
into new forces, must give the occasion for much further 
tracing the immutable principles to necessary determina- 
tions, and without forecasting what we may find vfe will 
pass on and see what the clear insight shall disclose. 

The circuits of the two primal forces, as they inter- 
work on and with each other, need to be kept distinctly in 
the apprehension. The antagonist agency goes back in the 
line of the axis to the poles, and holds itself in static equi- 
libration there untU the equatorial ring is elevated trans- 
verse to the axis, and until the forces in this ring have 
crowded their simple activities back on each side upon 
themselves up to the poles, and balanced the whole move- 
ment. Another crowding back of the polar points and 
lengthening of the axis then occurs, to hold itself again in 
static rest until the same process is repeated in another 
equatorial ring, and another hemispherical layer on each 
side to the poles. Thus perpetually with the circuit of the 
antagonist force. The diremptive activity, starting from 
the same limit in the central force, takes the same circuit 
by a directly converse movement. Going out each way 
from the central limit, the diremptive activities encounter 
these antagonist agencies, and thus pushing aU back upon 
the polar points they loosen the central tension, and in this 
the occasion is given for the diremptive action to turn its 
diveUency transverse to its first direction, and thereby 



THE PEINCIPLE OF WORLD-FOEMATIONS. 187 

press out and fill in the interval between the first antago- 
nist spherical layer and the central molecule. The diremp- 
tive agency thus balanced, must thence again push back 
upon the next outer polar points in the axis, to be thence 
turned again transverse to its fiDrmer direction, and loosen 
and fill in between the first and second spherical antagonist 
layer, and thus on alternately prolate and oblate until 
every spherical layer is loosened by the interposing diremp- 
tive fiDrce. 

This diremptive action ultimately disparts the layers 
and also the molecules in the layers, and dissolves the 
whole mass into a fluid or molten state. The two agencies 
thus balance each other, and the diremption is held still 
while the antagonism is just parted, and the fluid ether 
rests quiet. 

The principles of these working fi^rces determine clear, 
though varied and extended results. The polar points 
are perpetually static, and fiDrce the central movements 
through the equatorial plane and down on each side 
through the meridional lines to meet in these static poles 
and rest against them. Each concentric layer is thus bal- 
anced in its polar point, and thus each hemisphere through- 
out is balanced by the aggregate polar points which fi^rm 
its axis, and the two hemispheres stand in antagonism to 
each other in the equatorial plane, just as the simple 
activities stand in antagonism at the central point. The 
diremptive movement, or permeation of heat, is thus ever 
through the equatorial plane and back each way between 
the concentric layers, and never through the polar points 
and out from thence between the concentric layers towards 
the equator. When the heat is perpetually forced from 



188 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE TJNIYEESE. 

the centre, as there generated, into the equatorial plane, 
the hemispherical antagonism tends to hold it in this plane 
and necessitates its accumulation in the equatorial region. 
It presses its way between the layers only by overcoming 
this polar hemispherical resistance. The perpetual genera- 
tion and effusion must at length isolate every antagonist 
molecule, and thus truly fuse the whole sphere, but the 
greatest press of conflicting forces must be in and near to 
the equatorial plane. 

With this pressure of the two hemispheres together in 
the equatorial plane, from the perpetual working of the 
central antagonism, and the exact balancing of the mole- 
cules in fluid rest by the loosening of the interposed and 
everywhere permeating heat-force, we have a starting- 
point for the insight to attain to further determinations. 
The perpetual pressure of new generated forces, both an- 
tagonist and diremptive, into the balanced fluid ether, and 
which from the loosened and dissolved state of the antago- 
nist forces in the spherical layers, cannot now augment the 
volume of the universal sphere, must gradually condense 
and thicken the homogeneous ethereal fluid, and make it to 
be a chaotic mass of blended and confused interworking 
forces that, by occasion given, shall come together in chem- 
ical combination, and constitute various distinct substances. 
The even working of the two central forces, while thicken- 
ing the mass to greater consistency, keeps it still fluid and 
molten, and ready to flow on any excess of pressure. 

This excess must ultimately come, when the consist- 
ency of the mass is too dense to permit the ready pene- 
tration of the central working forces. A commingled 
stream of such forces, precluded from free permeation in 



THE PRINCIPLE OF WOELD-FOEMATIONS. 189 

the thickened chaotic matter, must drive it into currents 
and force the resisting portions before it into unequal accu- 
mulations. The invading currents, meeting with the re- 
sistance of the matter in advance, must tend perpetually 
to spiral and gyrating movements, turning athwart their 
own courses and revolving across their general lines of 
movement. Such whirling movement must repeatedly break 
up the matter that it carries into divers successive separa- 
tions, and at mtervals make wheeling portions of matter 
that turn themselves about upon their own axles, and work 
themselves into spherical forms. 

These will be of dijfferent volume and velocity of move- 
ment, according to the formmg impulses which have con- 
stituted them, but at length the myriads of revolving 
spheres will have worked up and exhausted the chaotic 
material, and leave the intervening spaces to be again filled 
by the purified primitive ether, and the wheeluig bodies 
and their reactions will balance the central forces, and re- 
ciprocal regulations and equilibrations must succeed. 

The commingled antagonist and diremptive forces from 
behind, and the hemispherical pressure at the sides, have 
overcome the forces of gravity and magnetism, and wrought 
the chemical chaos into these wheeling spheres, but while 
overworking they have not at all destroyed the forces of 
gravity and magnetism. These forces have been constant 
though overborne, and have held the universal sphere stead- 
fast in its own form and proportions. Each new spherical 
mass has also taken to itself a new centre, and every mole- 
cule of the mass is pressed out from the centre according 
to the principle of repulsion, and pressed back also to the 
centre according to the principle of attraction, and the de- 



190 THE ETERNAL PEmCIPLES OF THE UNIYEESE. 

terminations of gravity and magnetism are in all these new 
spherical bodies as in the great universal sphere. Each has 
the gravity of its own molecules towards its own centre, 
and each gravitates towards the others according to the ra- 
tios of the quantity of matter and inversely as the squares 
of their distances, and all feel and obey the determining prin- 
ciples of the great universal centre, and arrange themselves 
in theii' respective places about it according to the forces 
in the primitive universal ether in which they have their 
position. Each new spherical body is also a magnet with 
its own bi-polar directions, di]?, and attraction and repulsion, 
and yet these must conform to the magnetic forces of the 
universal sphere, according as the particular new spherical 
body is in the austral or boreal hemisphere of the universe. 
The confused and chaotic mass of chemically combining 
matter is thus, from the working of its own forces, taking 
on definite forms and assuming fixed positions, and while 
made to be individual wholes in their own constitution, 
they are yet but the component portions of the universal 
whole which is now coming in to the order of a systematic 
arrangement. The original antagonist and diremptive ac- 
tivities cannot work on together, without the necessity of 
inducing such a chaos of chemical combinations, and the 
necessity also of there ultimately coming out from it this 
growing order of a systematic whole in its determined and 
regulated members. All the spherical masses are taken up 
from the one molten universal mass, and though modified 
in their places from some peculiarities of forces and afiSni- 
ties, which may give some characteristic chemical differ- 
. ences in the matter of the different spheres, yet must all be 
substantially of the same material elements and bodily con- 



PEINCIPLE OF WORLD-FORMATIONS. 191 

stitution. There is more than analogy in appearance and 
origin from the same Creator, even an existence in the 
same primal forces, and a determined nature in the same 
eternal principles. 

We follow these determining principles still onward, 
and shall find yet more extended results of cosmical order 
and harmony. 

Single Wo7'lds. — ^When any rotating mass shall be of so 
great consistency, or of such slow motion, that the revolving 
force at the circumference is less than the force of gravity, 
or adhesion, then can no part be separated from the mass 
in its revolutions, but the forces of gravity and revolution 
will work on together, and the surrounding fluid matter 
will be taken up and incorporated uito the body, and the 
wheeling mass must ultimately settle itself into a globe of 
such an oblate form as the exact compounding of the gravi- 
tating and revolving forces shall determine. It must 
henceforth fill its own place, and rotate alone on its own 
axle, and take that position in the great sphere which is 
determined in its specific gravity. Its own forces of mag- 
netism and electricity must be inherent, and it must attract 
and be attracted according to the universal law of gravity. 

Double Worlds. — Should any rotating mass break and 
separate into two portions of no great inequality, the small- 
er must revolve outside of and around the larger, as having 
been m the revolution of the whole thrown off at parting 
beyond the larger, and while the larger portion must per- 
petually turn on its own centre, the two must thus be 
reciprocally yoked together and henceforth remain double. 
When such double worlds shall be viewed from other 
worlds in the direction of the plane of their orbits, they 



192 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE IJNIVEESE. 

must appear to approacli and recede alternately from each 
other ; and if viewed perpendicularly to their orbital plane, 
they must be seen to keep the same distance from each 
other while they revolve around their centre; and if 
viewed in any of the intermediate dkections, they must be 
seen to pass from side to side alternately, and always in 
such conjunction as appropriately to be known as double 
stars. Such connections in a common centre of revolution 
must depend upon conditions that cannot be anticipated as 
of common occurrence, and yet amid millions of forming 
worlds, the aggregate of double stars in their determining 
conditions may well be very considerable. 

These double worlds must, like the single suns, gravi- 
tate together towards the great centre, according to their 
quantity of matter, and must thus find, and then perma- 
nently keep, their proper places in the universal sphere, 
and stand forever balanced in the position determined by 
the compounding of the central and all outlying attractions. 

Systems of Worlds. — As these spherical bodies rotate 
on their axes, there must be not only the hemispherical 
pressure, but the force of rotation, perpetually tending to 
flatten the spheres at their poles and elevate them at their 
equators. If any of them have too httle adhesiveness, or 
such an excess of tangential force in rapidity of rotation as 
to overmatch the force of gravity, then cannot the super- 
ficial and equatorial portion maintain its connection with 
the mass, but must commence its discession at the place of 
the excess of the tangential force. This disceding portion 
will be followed by so much of the fluid equatorial circum- 
ference as shall at the time bring the rotating and gravitat- 
ing forces in equilibration, when the sphere will continue 



PRINCIPLE OF WOKLD-rOKMATIONS. 193 

its rotations, and the detached portion must folloAv out its 
separate determinations. 

If the tangential impulse has added but little to the 
momentum which the now detached portion had when in 
connection with the spherical body, then must the parted 
mass move nearly in the old circular track that it had when 
in the equatorial surface of the body it has left. But if it 
has a large excess of revolving over the gravitating force, 
and yet not sufficient to carry it beyond the attracting force 
of the sphere, the impulse must, proportioned to this excess, 
carry the detached portion out beyond its old track in the 
equatorial circumference it has left, and must deviate per- 
petually wider and wider from it, up to a certain point. 
The tangential force is constant, and as the detached por- 
tion moves off, the gravitating force is perpetually dimin- 
ishing in the ratio of the square of the distance, it must 
therefore discede from its old path, till it comes to its cul- 
minating point in the opposite end of a line drawn through 
the centre of the sphere from the point where it disceded 
from the sphere. From this point, the gravitating force 
begms to augment and bring the course gradually nearer 
to its old track, till in the point from whence it disceded 
its orbit will have been completed, and it must henceforth 
continue to move through these superior and inferior 
apsides, in an elliptical orbit around its old parent sphere, 
and be known as a distinct planet. 

The eccentricity of the planet's orbit must be directly 
as the excess of the tangential impulse at the time of dis- 
cession, for this excess must equilibrate itself in alternate 
departures and approaches with reference to its old path 
in the equatorial surface of the sphere. Its inclination of 
13 



194: THE ETERNAL PKINCIPLES OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

orbit to the plane of the old path must be determined by 
any forces drawing it aside, or changing the plane of the 
sphere's revolution after the planet's discession. 

This planetary mass thrown from the wheeling sphere, 
and henceforth to revolve in an elliptical orbit of greater or 
less eccentricity about the centre of the old sphere as one 
of its foci, is at the time of its discession in an utterly 
amorphous condition, both of outward shape and inward 
constitution and arrangement. It is only so much chemi- 
cally chaotic matter put in motion in a promiscuous aggre- 
gation. But the principle in the determining forces at 
work, must bring order out of confusion. As altogether 
separated from the parent sphere, it must have now its 
own centre of gravity, and every molecule of the fused 
matter must come under the conditions of the central 
forces, and tend at once to an arrangement equably about 
the centre in a globular form. This globular arrangement 
from the inner central force is also greatly favored by a 
combination of outward forces. The method of expulsion 
from the spherical body, and its subsequent action upon 
the planetary mass, tends strongly to its spherical arrange- 
ment and rotation. When the tangential force that ex- 
pelled it has been in considerable excess, it has necessarily 
given a proportionally strong impulse to the ejected plane- 
tary matter, and this impulse must be the most energetic 
upon the superior portion of this matter, and tending to 
drive this forward and over the inferior portion, at the same 
time the breaking up of the adhesion on leaving the mass, 
and the perpetuated attraction act most energetically upon 
the inferior portion, and both tend to restrain and slacken its 
motion. The combination of these forces necessitates that 



PRINCIPLE OF WORLD-FOEMATIONS. 195 

the upper portion shall run around and spirally enwrap 
the lower portion. An axis to the planet must thus be 
generated directly after its separation, and the planet im- 
mediately begin to rotate upon it. The direction of its 
rotation must be determined by these generating forces, 
and which secure that it must be in the same line in which 
the body at the time is moving in its orbit. The superior 
portion must be pushed over, and the inferior portion held 
back, and the plane of rotation must be determined by such 
combination. All parts of the planetary mass being of 
equal consistency, and at first equally distant from its own 
centre, Avould give conditions determining that the axis of 
rotation must be at right angles to the orbit, and the 
planet's equator in the plane of the orbit, and thus the 
rotation in the same plane with the revolution. 

But any modification of these conditions will vary the 
determined result. The general tendency must doubtless 
be to such direction of rotation, but a greater density or a 
larger volume on one side of the planetary mass must 
modify its rotation, and come in combination with the 
other forces to determine where the axis shall be generat- 
ed, and how one portion shall roll over another. In ex- 
treme cases of unequal balance in the planetary matter, 
the axis will necessarily have an extreme degree of inclina- 
tion to the orbit. The rotation must ever be conformable 
to, and never retrograde from the revolution, except from 
outward interfering forces, but the conditions determining 
the rotation may give very varied degrees of axial inclina- 
tion. 

The position of the axis and the rate of rotation, being 
determined by the conditions which first form the planet 



196 THE ETEENAL PEIXCIPLES OF THE IJNIYEESE. 

to a globe, they must henceforth continue the same. 
Other causes may vary the Telocity of revolution in diifer- 
ent portions of the orbit, and other forces may come in to 
change the plane of the orbit itself, but the dii-ection and 
velocity of rotation are settled in the planet's fii'st forma- 
tion. The tangential force and the power of attraction 
in the primal sphere, may vary relatively at different times 
in the revolution, but the compounded forces of rotation 
did their work at once, and that impulse is to be hence- 
forth constant in the ejected planet. 

When, now, we take the planet as a body rotating on its 
axis, we can see that, in its fluid state, similar conditions may 
give similar determinations to it, as were those in the case 
of the wheeling sphere from whence the planet was sep- 
arated. This planet rotates with a rapidity determined by 
the fii'st compounded impulse, and this may be in very 
varied degrees among different planets. When the excess 
of force is on the side of the attraction, the tangential 
force of rotation will make no separations, and the planet 
will revolve in its orbit alone without any attendant. But 
when the excess of force is on the side of the tangential 
impulse, a separation of a portion of the circumference of 
the planet must ensue, and this ]3ortion must form itself 
into a globe, and revolve about the planet as a satellite, 
according to the determining principles before given for 
the planet itself. 

The rotation of the planet on its axis will not give the 
amount of tangential force that the old spherical mass did 
in throwing off the planet; it is therefore hardly to be 
anticipated, that when a satellite is formed, it should be 
made to rotate about an axis generated within. Instead 



PRINCIPLE OF WORLD-FORMATIONS. 197 

of the tangential force crowding the superior portion on, 
and the gravitating force holding the inferior portion 
back, sufficiently to secure a rotation, the presumption 
would be that when a satellite is formed, it will simply be 
separated and lifted from the rotating planet, and thus left 
to concentrate in a globular form, by the action of gravity 
within it, and merely revolve around the planet. This 
must give a peculiarity of phase to the satellite in reference 
to the planet. In the rotation of the planet about its own 
axis, it abolished the virtual motion that tended to keep 
its revolution as it had been in unbroken connection with 
the radii from the great centre, and balanced itself, by its 
rotary motion, in the plane passing through its centre per- 
pendicular to its axis. Its axis, in each part of its orbit, 
thus kept itself parallel to the positions it had occupied in 
every other part, and every revolution turned each portion 
of the planet's surface, in succession, once towards the 
great body within its orbit. But the satellite, which does 
not rotate, has the virtual motion which the fixed radii 
had communicated from the centre of the planet to the 
equatorial circumference, and which is now as if the radii 
were combined in the one radius from the centre of the 
planet through the centre of the satellite. The satellite, 
thus, cannot hold itself in any plane passing through its 
centre perpendicular to some diameter that might be made 
an axis, but must move on in its orbit, as its parts in their 
places in the equatorial circumference of the planet had 
done before their expulsion, when they were fixed in their 
radii toward the centre. The satelhte now separated fi-om 
it may revolve faster or slower than it, but this satellite 
must keep on in its revolution with the velocity it had 



198 THE ETEENAL PEmCIPLES OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

when it left the planet, and with its unvarying phase 
turned toward the planet in all its revolution. If a sat- 
ellite rotate, it must turn each part of itself toward the 
planet with every revolution about it, and if it do not 
rotate on its axis, it cannot, by its own motion, turn any 
but the same side towards every part of the planet, as it 
moves above and around it. 

It may also be an occurrence sometimes given, yet 
seldom repeated, because its conditions can very seldom 
be found, that the circumference shall be so homogeneous 
and equable in density, and the tangential force so evenly 
distributed about the equatorial surface of the planet, that 
it shall lift a portion of its raised equatorial circumference 
at once and together from itself, and make a separating 
space in every part between its own body and a ring above 
it. In such an occurrence, the separated ring is a satellite 
which cannot concentrate into a globe. It may condense 
itself more and more, and the planet also may condense 
beneath it indefinitely, making the spacial distance between 
proportionally large, yet unless the ring have force applied 
in some part to sunder its adhesion, it must perpetually 
encircle the planet it has parted from, and continue to re- 
volve above and about it. It is itself its own orbit, and 
each portion of the ring follows every other portion. Its 
rate of revolution is determined in the momentum pos- 
sessed at the time of separation, and any changes of gen- 
erating forces above or beneath must shift its centre of 
revolution accordingly. In any considerable changes of 
the force of gravity in or upon itself unequably, there 
may be a conformity consistently with its integrity while 
it is a fluid ; but as an unyielding dense body, it must be 



PEINCIPLE OF WOELD-FOKMATIONS. 199 

ruptured or precipitated upon the planet, if very powerful 
or violent disturbing forces act upon it. 

Thus may we very clearly follow the determining prin- 
ciples in the formation of world-systems, through their first 
stages. The oldest planet will be that thrown off from 
the outmost perij^hery of the wheeling sphere, occasioned 
by the compound action of the central and hemispherical 
forces meeting in the equatorial region of the primitive 
universal globe of matter. This planet must conform, in its 
future ongoing, to the conditioning principles we have 
been tracing by the insight of reason. We have only to 
follow the same guide, and read the eternal principles in 
their grounds, to the completion of the idea in the per- 
fected world-system. 

When one planetary portion of matter has been thus 
throwTi off from the wheeling sphere, that portion which 
remains entire must now move on with accelerated ve- 
locity. There is both an accumulating force at the centre 
from the continuance of the perpetually generated pressure, 
and the parting with a heavy encumbrance from the cir- 
cumference. Still it must require an action through a con- 
siderable period before the now diminished equatorial cir- 
cumference, though revolving on its centre more rapidly, 
shall pass in any of its points through an equal space in the 
same time, that the points in the old circumference did. 
The tangential force that shall throw off another planet, 
must require some time in generating. But the point must 
ultimately be reached, determined by the same conditions 
as before in the consistency of the matter and the energy 
of the expulsive power, when another portion of planetary 
matter must be expelled, and which must go off to work 



200 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

its results under its conditions as before considered. 
Doubtless its quantity of matter in volume and density, 
wlU greatly differ from the former ; and also, that there 
will be a considerable difference in velocity of revolution, 
eccentricity and inclination of plane in the orbit, rapidity 
and period of rotation on its axis, and inclination of axis 
to the orbit, and also a difference in haviag no satellite or 
a varied number of them from the former planet. But all 
these will be determined for it in the conditions that come 
with it, and these conditions are all given in the deter- 
mining principles of the great primal forces working under 
the control of the Absolute Reason at the centre. Thus 
on, in succession, till the remaming portion of the sphere 
may be of a density and velocity of revolution, in the ex- 
hausted and used-up fused material that was in its gather- 
ing reach, that shall permit itself to condense and concen- 
trate in a globe at the centre, and revolve in its own place 
according to its given conditions, incessantly and inter- 
minably, but at the pleasure of the Creator. Each planet 
and each satellite has settled its own laws of working in 
its formation, and in them there is a register of the forces 
and movements of the whole in the places and times of 
their formation, and the whole is now a unit in its recipro- 
cal interactions, and held also in unity to the great primi- 
tive globe which fixes its place for it within itself. 

Thus with all single and double and compound worlds ; 
the great amount of fused and prepared material, about 
the middle regions of the universal globe of matter, may 
be made to exhaust itself ia any number and variety of 
world-formations, by a directing agency at the centre of 
all operation, and all these to take their respective places, 



PRINCIPLE OF WORLD-FOEMATIONS. 201 

and revolve therein with unbroken order. When the 
newly compounded matter shall have been thus all pressed 
into separate worlds and systems, and the superabundant 
heat-forces shall be absorbed in such creations, the great 
globe of universal primitive matter will stand forth, clear in 
its appropriate forces as before, and the solid worlds be left 
floating in the pure ether, which has a power of gravity to 
regulate, but not a consistency and resistance to Tiinder or 
derange, their exact revolutions and rotations. The 
•original antagonism at the centre has never been relaxed, 
and now holds the primal matter, and all the chemically com- 
bined matter of the moving worlds, in that energetic force 
and action which keeps up for them perpetual and palpable 
existence, shape, and movement. And the conversely act- 
ing diremptive-force keeps also its central outgoings con- 
stant, and the incessant heat-generation permeates the 
entire area of the universal sphere. These original agen- 
cies now perpetually energize, not that they may consti- 
tute new materials, and augment the existing creation, 
but that they may sustain, equilibrate, and supply the 
universe in all its parts and uses as already wisely consti- 
tuted. 

The past history of world-formations may be read 
exactly in their present movements and localities. The 
central sun once joined in continuous matter itself, through 
aR the intervening worlds, to the outermost planet. These 
worlds now condensed in solid bodies, were then fluid 
masses, and the rotating motion of the whole had then at 
the equatorial circumference, the velocity of this furthest 
planet in its orbit. In successive stages it has thrown ofi* 
its superficial strata, which have rolled and hardened into 



202 THE ETEKXAL PEIKCrPLES OF THE HN'TYEESE. 

worlds, now moying in their orbits at the same rates of 
revohition in wMcli the primal sphere was then turning on 
its axle. Yea, all the universe of suns and systems were 
once in that chaotic mass together, which was by the 
primitive heat dissolved, and mingled, and chemically re- 
constituted out of the modified ethereal matter. They 
have been separately wrought in their forms, and pressed 
to their present dimensions, by the strong impulses of the 
dii'emptive forces, and the antagonisms which have come 
together in each hemisphere at the equator. We have 
only to follow back the record which their facts will bear 
upon them, and we may read their historical epochs just 
in the same order of existence, as the eternal principles in 
the reason would have prophesied their development. 
The Absolute Creator, ^ith the archetypes of all possible 
forces in their unmade principles in his own insight, has 
seen the end that in knowing himself he has known was the 
most worthy of him, and for his own excellency's sake lie 
adopted it, and for bis glory also he has taken that out of 
all possibles which the principles demanded, that in the 
highest wisdom he might consummate it. The facts have 
all been after their unchanging principles ; and the benevo- 
lence and righteousness of the end has not been by any 
arbitrary constituting of principles, but by an orderly con- 
stituting of facts, and bringing into existence a material 
creation with a nature that immade and eternal principles 
determined for it. The glory of the Maker is, that the 
making has eternal reasons for it. 

1 7. Peixciples of Pla^t:taet Motiox. — The principle 
determining the formation of world-systems includes within 
it that also for planetary motion, and we may here follow 



PRINCIPLES OF PLANETARY MOTION. 203 

out such determination, and attain the three celebrated 
Kepler's Laws, not as mere facts found and which have no 
higher explication, but which must so be if the system it- 
self shall be. 

(1.) Planets must revolve in elliptical orbits. The rota- 
tion of the primitive spheres, before the conjoint forces 
from the centre through the equatorial plane and between 
the two hemispherical pressures, must secure a translation 
of the superficial portion, more or less according to degree 
of adhesion and force of revolution, from the polar regions 
towards the equator, and thus elevate by so much the 
equatorial portion of the sphere. While the rate of revo- 
lution gives a tangential force less than the gravitating or 
adhesive force at the equatorial surface, the whole mass 
must cohere and all rotate about one axis. But when the 
tangential force at the equator exceeds the gravitating 
force, there must come a disruption of a portion from the 
equatorial surface. This may include a thicker or thinner 
rim of the same consistency of substance, from the con- 
ditions of the hemispherical pressure or an interference of 
external planetary attraction, but the force of revolution 
which throws off the planetary portion must, to the extent 
of its excess over cohesion, avail to project it beyond the 
circular track it had been describing in the equatorial cir- 
cumference. By the force of its ejection it must pass out 
beyond its old revolution. 

The excess of projectile above that of adhesive force 
may be to any given amount, but inasmuch as with the 
greatest degree of projectile impulse, the gravitating force 
toward the centre of the sphere must still act, so the eject- 
ed mass must be affected by it, and cannot pass off in a 



204 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

completely tangential straight line, and must take the 
course of a curve somewhere within the tangent. If the 
excess of projectile force be to so great a degree, that 
when a point taken as a centre within the induced curve 
shall have lines drawn from this centre to the curve, and 
then reflected from the curve at the same angle to a tan- 
gent at that point, on the other side, which the incident 
line had Avith the tangent on this side, and these reflected 
lines shall also meet a line drawn perpendicularly to the 
axis of the curve at an angle greater than a right angle, 
then will that curve be thereby evinced to be a hyperbola^ 
and the planetary portion cannot revolve in a complete 
orbit about the centre. If these reflected lines meet the 
perpendicular to the axis at an angle equal to a right angle, 
then will that curve be thereby evinced to be a parabola^ 
and the planetary mass still cannot make a complete revo- 
lution. But if these reflected lines meet the perpendicular 
to the axis at an angle less than a right angle, then must 
they converge and meet somewhere in another j)oint that 
shall be another focus to the curve, and thus make the 
curve to have as it were two centres, which will thereby 
evince that the curve is an ellipse^ and thus, as returning 
again into itself, the path will be a complete orbit, and the 
planet wiU perpetually revolve in it. Should the reflected 
lines come back in the incident lines to the same centre, 
this would thereby evince the curve to be an arc of a circle^ 
and such must of course be the orbit of the moving body 
in it. 

But the impossibility that the projected mass should 
take the curve that is the arc of a circle is manifest in what 
has already been seen, viz., that when the projectile force 



PEINCIPLES OF PLANETAKY MOTION. 205 

was less than, or only equal to, the attractive force, it could 
not be ejected from the main sphere, and would in the 
equatorial surface of that sphere describe an exact circle ; 
and that the excess of projectile force, which must eject it, 
must also to the same degree send it out of and beyond 
the circle it had been hitherto describing. It must there- 
fore extend its curve beyond a circle if it become a separate 
planetary body, and it must not extend the curve to the 
hyperbola or parabola if it revolve at all in a complete 
orbit. It must therefore take on an elliptical orbit of great- 
er or less eccentricity. 

This determined elliptical orbit, and the principle which 
must determine also the given eccentricity, may be followed 
in the order of its process. At the point of discession 
the planet must possess and retain with it a given constant 
measure of centrifugal force, which, as an excess above the 
gravitating or centripetal force, has detached it from the 
primal sphere and sent it beyond the circle in the equato- 
rial circumference. The centripetal force gradually dimin- 
ishes as this constant centrifugal force carries the planet 
outwards from the circle it had in the old circumference, 
and the planet must thus discede continually from the old 
centre until it has completed one-half of its revolution. 
But the centrifugal force is not sufficient to carry it by and 
beyond this culminating point, which would demand that 
it become a parabola or an hyperbola, and thus the centri- 
petal force avails to bring it down from this point in the 
semi-revolution, and thence this centripetal force gradually 
augments through the other half of the revolution to the 
return in the old point of discession. The inferior apsis 
must be at the point of discession, and the superior apsis at 



206 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

the opposite point of half a revolution, and the excess of 
the major over the minor axis must be proportional to the 
excess of the tangential or projectile impulse. It must be 
some form of the elHpse, for it must be outside of the old 
equatorial circle, and it must be inside of either a hyper- 
bolic or parabolic curve which could not return into itself. 

(2.) Each planet must describe equal sectors in equal 
times in its own orbit. When the primal sphere from 
whence the planet was separated rotated with the matter 
of the planet still adhering to the equatorial surface, each 
point in every radius in the equatorial plane out of the 
centre moved in a perfect circle, and each radius from the 
centre to any point within it, equally distant in all, de- 
scribed equal areas in equal times in the equal velocity of 
rotation. Since the planet has been thrown off, the pro- 
jectile force that expelled it has gone with it and remained 
constant in it, and if the planet had continued to move in 
its old circular track, the velocity would still have been 
uniform, and thus its radius or line drawn from its own 
centre to the centre of revolution would still have described 
equal sectors in equal times. 

But according to the first principle of planetary motion, 
the excess of tangential over the gravitating force has 
necessarily given to its course an elliptical orbit of more or 
less eccentricity, and thus its rate of movement must be 
variable through all portions of its revolution. This excess 
of tangential force must, however, exactly balance itself 
against the gravitating force in the resulting eccentricity 
of the orbit, and the whole periodic time of revolution must 
be the same as that of its last rotation in the circumference 
of the sphere before its ejection. That rotation was in a 



PEINCIPLES OF PLANETARY MOTION. 207 

complete circle, and the radii all described equal sectors in 
equal times. The radius which the planet now carries with 
it, or the line from its occupied focus to its own centre, 
called the radius vector^ continually lengthens itself in the 
passage from the inferior to the superior apsis, in the exact 
proportion inversely as the velocity dimmishes ; and then 
again contracts itself in the passage from the superior to 
the inferior apsis, in its opposite semi-revolution, in the 
exact proportion inversely as the velocity increases. What 
is gamed in the extent of the radius vector is exactly com- 
pensated in the retardation of the movement, and what on 
the other side of the orbit is lost in the contraction of the 
radius vector is also exactly compensated in the accelera- 
tion of the movement, and the whole periodic time of revo- 
lution is the same in the planetary ellipse as it was in the 
equatorial circle, and thus the circumference of the elliptical 
orbit is of the same extent as was that of the rotating equa- 
torial circle. But the same extent of radius and arc of the 
circle have the same proportion to the whole area of the 
circle, that the like extent of radius vector and arc of the 
ellipse have to the whole area of the ellipse, and. as these are 
described in equal times in both, and that of the circle is 
equal sectors in equal times, so that also of the ellipse must 
be equal sectors in equal times. 

(3.) The squares of the times of revolution must he as 
the cubes of the f)iean distances. If Ave take a perfectly 
circular orbit, we may say that a given amount of force 
will secure that the planet shall have one Qninini of motion 
in one moment of time ; and therefore in one minim of mo- 
tion and one moment of time, one radius will have changed 
its place, by the revolution, for the place which its next 



208 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIYEESE. 

contiguous radius had occupied in the plane of the orbit. 
But that the same force should carry the planet through its 
entire orbit, must demand that the same radius take the 
place successively of all the radii in so many minims of mo- 
tion and moments of time. And now, as the Nvhole area of 
the orbital plane is as the square of the radius, so the force 
is as the square of the minims of motion, and also as the 
square of the moments of time. A less or greater force, in 
carrying the planet through the same orbit, must have its 
proportionally less or greater moments of time, and a less 
or greater orbit with the same force must have its propor- 
tionally less or greater moments of time, and all differences 
of orbit with differences of force must have their propor- 
tional differences of moments of time, and therefore, in all 
cases, the force and the orbit being given must determine 
the square of the time of revolution. 

Now the orbit may be constituted the same on three 
different conditions, viz., as the revolution of a line about 
one of its ends, or the revolution of a circular plane of the 
game semi-diameter as the length of the line, or the revolu- 
tion of a solid globe of the same diameter as the circular 
plane. But while m all these cases the orbits would be the 
same, in each case the forces must greatly differ one from 
another. When the planet is thrown from the end of the 
revolving line, it will move in the same orbit in the same 
time if the force is as the sum of all the points in the line, 
or, which is the same thing, as the length of the line. In 
this case the princijDle must be, that the squares of the 
times of revolution must be as the distances. 

If the planet be thrown off from the circumference of a 
rotating circular plane, then also will it move in the same 



PRINCIPLES OF PLANETARY MOTION. 209 

orbit in the same time when the force is as the length of 
every Hne from the centre to the circumference, or, as the 
same thing, the square of the distance. The principle in 
this case must therefore be, that the squares of the times of 
revolution must be as the squares of the distances. 

But when a planet has been expelled from the equato- 
rial surface of a sphere, although revolving in the same 
time within the same orbit, yet must its force have been 
far greater. Every radius of the sphere has thrown off its 
own portion, and here the principle must be as the cube of 
the distance, and we shall have the determined formula 
that the squares of the periodic times will be as the cubes 
of the distance. The determining forces of the universe in 
the central antagonist and diremptive working, exclude 
both the former principles, and give the latter as the third 
principle of planetary motion. 

Thus would it be in all cases of circular orbits, but the 
principle also equally prevails when the planet has disceded 
from the primal sphere, and taken on its orbit of a more or 
less eccentric ellipse. In all cases, the corresponding of 
centrifugal and centripetal forces must balance the distance 
from the centre with the rate of motion, and thus always 
for the entire revolution we must say of the mean distance 
in the ellipse what is true of the equal radii of the circle, 
that the squares of the times of revolution are as the cubes 
of the mean distances. 

It is worthy of remark, that planetary formations on 

either of the three conditions of an expulsion from a line, 

a circular plane, or a sohd sphere, would each determine 

the same results in the first two principles of planetary 

motion, and give necessarily elliptical orbits, and equal 
14 



210 THE ETEENAL PEmCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

sectors in equal times, but only planets thrown from the 
equatorial surface of a globe can make the squares of the 
periodic times as the cubes of the mean distances. 

18. Peinciple op Light and of Lumenifeeous Bod- 
ies. — Should we conceive that light is some subtle mate- 
rial substance transmitted by radiation from a lumuious 
source, we might have in this that which should impress 
the organ of vision, but we should have only the substance 
moved m radiation, and know nothing of the radiating 
force. Or, should we conceive that this subtle substance 
was put in rapid and progressive vibration, we should again 
have that which might make an impression upon the organ, 
but we should have only the matter vibrating, but not the 
force which put and keeps it in motion. We need to at- 
tain the insight of some force that goes through the midst 
of the molecules in the primitive ether, and sets them in 
vibration and registers itself in their movement, before we 
can know what light is in its essential principle, or deter- 
mine any of the necessary laws of its j^henomena. The 
diremptive force is the essential principle of light as well as 
heat. This diremptive activity going out each way in the 
midst of antagonist forces, necessarily separates and isolates 
these molecular forces, and in permeating the ensphered 
mass, it must make its way by giving alternately a prolate 
and an oblate form to every successive spherical layer, and 
thereby make every molecule in the layers successively to 
vibrate as they stand out in their direction and distance 
from the centre, and thus the vibrations must be a radia- 
tion from the centre. 

Such diremptive vibrations we have already considered 
as the principle of heat, and when the vibrations are of a 



THE PEINCIPLE OF LIGHT. 211 

given degree of intensity, breadth, and frequency, they will 
be essentially mere heat ; but this heat intensified to a cer- 
tain higher degree of sharp and rapid Adbration, becomes 
light. Heat and light are from the one diremptive activity, 
and are thus one m their essence and general principle, but 
they diifer in tension, breadth, and velocity, and in this 
difiference of degree, will be found all differences of deter- 
mined phenomenal laws. 

We have now the conception of the multiplied worlds 
and systems, and these as floating, under the control of 
gravity, in the great ocean of the primitive ether which 
forms the grand universal sphere. This primitive ether is 
constituted of the ensphered antagonist molecules, all sep- 
arated and rendered fluid by the interfusion of the diremp- 
tive force between them. The formation of the worlds 
and systems has collected and conglomerated the chemical 
elements, and the whole chaotic matter has been thus used 
up and condensed in separate masses, and the purified 
ether stands in its own ensphered relation to its one grand 
centre, and fills up all the interplanetary and interstel- 
lary spaces, and stretches itself out to the limits of the 
imiverse. The great central antagonist and diremptive 
activities hold on their steady and equal converse pres- 
sures, and thus this sea of the ethereal universe is perpet- 
ually tranquil and still. All the diremptive force in it is 
heat, held in static equilibration by its even surroundings 
of the antagonist molecular forces, and is thus wholly 
latent heat. There is much heat in chemical combination 
in the simple and compound substances of matter, and this 
heat is also fixed in the matter of the worlds which it helps 
to constitute, and thus the great amount of diremptive 



212 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

energy is held at rest in its reaction, or rather direct con- 
verse action, with other forces. Only the heat, which is 
free and uncombined in the molten masses of the material 
worlds, is in a condition to radiate, and so far to make the 
primitive ether to vibrate. 

But in the midst of this general calm of the universe 
since the progressive settling of the worlds into their 
forms and places, we now turn the rational insight specially 
to the new modifications of the antagonist forces in these 
separate worlds and systems, and we shall attain to some 
further immutable and eternal principles most interesting, 
and determining to very broad phenomenal results. So 
soon as the great chaotic mass of fused chemical materials 
for world-formations in the universal equatorial region, 
had been first thickened and then broken up by the crowd- 
ing in of the augmenting central forces, and the various 
streams had been rounded into spiral circuits by the 
advance resistances, and these divided and condensed mto 
separate wheeling spheres, then these separate spheres all 
had each its own centre, and every molecule in them at 
once had a polarity that was determined from the particu- 
lar centre, while only the general polarity of the particular 
sphere was determined by the centre of the great universal 
sphere. This particular polarity and gravity for each 
molecule to its new centre, has been again modified by the 
expulsion of each new planet and satellite, and which have 
each had all their molecules turned in polarity and grav- 
ity to conform to their own new centres ; and yet all the 
particular globes of the same system have kept the one 
and same common centre for their general polarity and 
gravity. And especially, while the worlds of the system 



THE PRINCIPLE OF LIGHT. 213 

have had their one common centre, the ethereal molecules 
through all the spaces of that system have been turned 
and kept in their determined polarity and gravity by that 
centre. The primitive ether within the system has been 
ensphered about the centre of the system, and we may re- 
gard it as a particular ethereal sphere separate altogether 
from the globes of chemically combined matter that float 
within it. 

Take, then, the ethereal sphere of any particular sys- 
tem, and which extends out from the centre, beyond its 
farthest planet, to the extent to which its power of attrac- 
tion reaches, and every molecular force of the antagonist 
activities is pressed out and presses back, just in proportion 
to its quantity of force or matter, and inversely to the 
square of its distance from the centre. Now when the 
central sun shall have thrown oflF all its planets, and 
settled itself in a sphere at the centre, its surface must 
take and sustain all this ethereal gravitation. The diremp- 
tive force, which mingles in it and so permeates it as to 
surround and isolate every antagonist molecular force, is 
wholly imponderable ; its action is away from the centre, 
and is held from expansion to infinity only by the antag- 
onist activities which meet and retain it ; the antagonisms 
only press back upon the centre, and thus the antagonist 
molecules only are ponderable, and all these through the 
sphere do press upon the sun's surface. 

In this sphere of the ethereal fluid surrounding the 
central sun, we must regard only the antagonist forces as 
pressing back upon the body of the sun in their gravity, 
and while the permeating heat-force would just dissolve 
and make the whole to be fluid ether, if only the general 



214: THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

pressure to the universal centre were regarded, yet now 
with this new centre of the world-system and the pressure 
of the antagonist forces back upon it, the ether cannot 
remain a wholly dissolved and every way movable fluid. 
The polar points, and equatorial rings, and spherical layers 
of the antagonist forces, all again stiffen into consistency 
and rigidity, by the gravity pressing back upon the central 
sun, and the heat-force through all the ethereal sphere of 
the system is confined between the spherical layers, and 
thus an action must at once commence at the centre, or on 
the sun's surface, that will send the diremptive forces in 
their alternate j^rocesses of prolate and dilate movement 
through the sphere, and on beyond till equalized by the 
outer resistance, and then the radiations can propagate 
themselves no further. The new direction of gravity to 
the centre of the system must at once make a new radiat- 
ing movement from that centre, and the pressure of the 
ether upon the sun's surface, and the friction of the sun's 
rotation in colHsion with it, must accumulate a large 
amount of the du-emptive force about it, and which will at 
once be a perpetual source for outgoing streams of vibrat- 
ing energy. Such diremptive generation and accumulation 
must be constant, and as the pressure is greatly intensified, 
so the vibrations are proportionally quickened and sharp- 
ened, and the heat becomes light, and the sun has its 
luminous atmosphere, and is the great centre of heat and 
light, as well as of gravity to its system. Its light and 
heat are as determinate principles as its gravity, yea, they 
are eternally determined in its gravity. Such a centre to 
a system cannot be in the universal ether, but it will kindle 



THE PEINCIPLE OF LIGHT. 215 

its heat and light about it, and diffuse it abroad in per- 
petual vibrating radiations. 

This gravitating pressure at the centre is constant ; 
and the supply from the great ethereal universal sphere is 
exhaustless; as the radiations go off to mingle in and 
be absorbed by the great ethereal ocean, so the great cen- 
tral pressure that makes and keeps that ocean full must 
work the diremptive forces back to the solar centre, 
through all the layers of the sphere that its gravity has 
formed about it, as the radiations go out and exhaust that 
which is in this centre ; and thus the solar light is perpet- 
ually replenished, and its radiations in successive vibratory 
movements continual, and the circuit of heat and light 
unbroken. 

The forces of gravity and the tangential repulsions must 
determine the rate of revolution, and thus the point at 
which the central body shall cease to throw off new plan- 
ets, and must thus also determine the volume of the central 
sun, and this will regulate its amount of light. Before the 
last planets shall have been separated, and while the sys- 
tem-making sphere is yet of very considerable size, the 
forces of gravity in the ethereal fluid will begin to press 
upon its surface in sufficient intensity to wake and actuate 
the latent heat, and commence the faint accumulations of a 
luminous atmosphere, and which must grow on as the 
volume of the central body diminishes and the forces of 
gravity upon its surface augment, and thus light will have 
been generated, and day and night have been given to the 
planets already thrown off, before the sun as the permanent 
centre shall have been constituted. The morning twihght 
of creation must begin in the first kindling of light upon 



216 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE TNIVEESE. 

the surface of the diminishing system-s|)here, and become 
the perfect day when this system-sphere has become the 
central sun, and its full light reflected upon the planetary 
bodies shall make it and them to be " lights in the firma- 
ment of heaven, to divide the day from the night, and to 
be for signs and for seasons and for days and years." 
Were the central sun to diminish less than this due pro- 
portion determined by gravity and heat-force, both light 
and heat would become deficient. Every central sun must 
be such a luminiferous body, and while a sun to its own 
system, it must also be a star shining in its own light to 
all the other suns and worlds, within the scope of its radia- 
ting vibrations. The planets will not be centres of gravity, 
giving intensity to the antagonist forces in awakening the 
latent heat sufficiently to make them self-luminous, though 
it may so be that some of the larger shaU have their hght 
increased by this self-production beyond the amount of 
reflection. 

The whole sphere of the system, and indeed the uni- 
versal sphere of the primitive ether, is filled with static or 
latent heat, and thus the central radiation has not to pass 
in locomotion all through the interior and out to the cir- 
cumference in its vibrations to propagate light ; the pulsa- 
tion at the centre finds a plenum before it, and thus each 
throb moves the whole, and only the compressibility and 
elastic spring is to be estimated in the transmission of mo- 
tion. The rapidity of light wiU be uniform and in almost 
inconceivable degrees. 

As radiating from a centre and thus diminishing its 
tension in the ratio of gravity, it must give its degree of 
intensity inversely to the extent of the subtending angular 



V 



THE PRINCIPLE OF LIGHT. 217 

line, or apparent size of the body, and thus degree of light 
and size will diminish alike by distance, each being in- 
versely to the square of the distance. A small body of 
proportionally intense light may appear equal in bright- 
ness, at the same distance, with a large body and lens light. 
The principle of radiation in the vibrating movement 
from a centre being attained, it will at once determine 
what must bo the phenomena. If the transmitted vibra- 
tions meet a substance that stops and absorbs them, such 
interposing substance must be opaque. If they readily 
pass through the substance, it must be transparent j and 
if passing scantily and with difficulty, it must be merely 
translucent. If they strike some substance and are de- 
flected in their course, they must thereby determine all the 
phenomena in reflection ; and in passing from a rarer into 
a denser medium, there must be refraction ; and if passing 
by the opaque edge of an interposing body, there must be 
diffraction. If the substance transmit the opposite vibra- 
tions unequally, there must be double refraction ; and if a 
direct ray be refracted unequally, it must in that process 
be analyzed and spread its unequal vibrations through an 
elongated spectrum. Also, if a direct ray be reflected or 
refracted at a particular angle, and then be turned on its 
axis, it will have made one side of the vibrations to disap- 
pear, in turning the edges of their plane within the line of 
vision, and only the vibrations in the transverse plane can 
be apparent, and thus the radiation must be polarized ; 
and if one line of vibrations cross another, there must be 
alternate combination and neutralization, and thus the 
phenomena of interference. The principle being attained, 
the laws in the facts are a necessity. 



218 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE TNIVEKSE. 

19. The Pkinciples oe Geological Formations. — All 
worlds are constituted from some combinations of the two 
elemental forces, and while the circumstances may some- 
what modify the chemical compounding, and vary in differ- 
ent worlds their material substances to a certain extent, 
yet must each world be essentially like the others, and the 
combination and collocation of its substances be peculiar 
only in the peculiar conditions to which it has been sub- 
jected. We may thus apprehend the general priuciples 
of this world-formation, and some of the peculiarities 
which certain of the worlds from their circumstances must 
possess, and we can in this have the principles of what 
may be termed a universal geology. 

The universe must have its particular systems, and the 
system must have its particular sun, planets, and satellites. 
All must have the same determinate princi23les of planetary 
revolution. The planets may condense in the cooliug and 
conglomerating process unequally, but in the original 
throwing off, the outer planets must have been the rarer 
and the inner planets the denser, and such must contuiue 
to be their general state in their perpetual orbital posi- 
tions. The central suns, from their perpetual atmosphere 
of heat and light, must condense the least from cooling. 
The particular world as a planet, will have the action of 
gravity concentrating aU its matter by direct radial lines 
to the centre, and added thereto a tangential force in its 
rotation about its axis. This general action of gravity 
will bring the denser matter to the centre, and the whole 
outlying matter will press in upon it, and thus secure that 
the matter in the first fluid formation wiU be ranged ac- 
cording to the universal law of a density in the inverse 



THE PEINCIPLES OF GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 219 

ratio to the square of the distance from the centre. But 
a rotary force will so modify this, that in addition to the 
direct concentration of gravity there will be the whirling 
movement, wrapping layer over layer in concentric folds. 
The globe will thus form in concentric strata of perpet- 
ually increasing density to the centre, and with a tendency, 
when the mass may harden, to a cleavage in the direction 
between the strata, and to lines and fractures in the direc- 
tion of gravity across the strata. 

The cooling process is the escaping of the suj)erabun- 
dant and uncombined diremptive forces, which go off from 
the very nature and constitution of their existence, leaving 
the chemical combinations in the body to their unhindered 
strength of affinities, and thus the substance of the plane- 
tary world must become at length a solid globe of less or 
greater volume and density. As the cooling and con- 
densing process goes on, the crust above the fused matter 
becomes thicker, the outer strata press their weight upon 
the lower, and therefore from both the necessity of the 
heaviest being the lowest in a fluid state, and the outer 
pressing the inner in a solid state, the lower strata in posi- 
tion must be the densest and hardest, and the most com- 
pact crystals and sub-crystalline rocks will have their 
places nearest to the internal fire. The first geological 
formations must be plutonic, the crystallized and partially 
crystallized will underlie the composite, and the inner 
heat will at length be so confined and softened, that an 
atmosphere shall form, and the combination of water com- 
mence, and ultimately the wernerian geological process 
must begin. Disintegration and abrasion, and diluvial 
currents, will make their transpositions of substance, and 



220 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

sedimentary deposits will make their various strata, and 
vegetable and animal life begin, and tbeir fossil remains 
become imbedded in the formiag and successively overly- 
ing portions. The sea and air will alternate over the same 
places, and each make their distinct record upon the same 
portions of the planet's surface, and leave it to be read by 
ftiture philosophical observers. The force of the iimer 
fires, especially in any commingling with the expansible 
fluids and gases, must iaduce wide disruptions and up- 
heavals, and the tHtiag and twisting of the superincumbent 
strata, and thus the surface of the planet must become 
broken into ridges and fissures, chasms and opening caves 
beneath the sohd overlying portions ; and in the greater 
labors of the subterranean forces, mountains and valleys 
must be formed, and broad fields of the horizontal strata 
will be upturned, and give their outcropping edges to re- 
veal the orders of natm'e's ongoings for long geological 
cycles. 

These inner fires must often have their orifices opening 
upwards to the surface, and the volcanic action fi'om these 
open craters will give the index of the disturbances be- 
neath ; and when obstructions to the volcanic vent occurs, 
or new explosions take place under the sohd crust, there 
must come in connection all the "violent tremblings and 
commotion of the earthquake. Continents will be lifted or 
depressed, and oceans and lakes will swell or subside, and 
the surface necessarily take on all the modifications given 
to it by the movements of the fused mass on which this 
superficial crust reposes. 

20. The Pkixciple of Cometakt Bodies. — ^When the 
fluid and variously compoimded matter, in its chaotic 



THE PEINCIPLE OF COMETS. 221 

state, has been very generally taken up and wrought into 
revolving suns and systems by the pressure of the central 
forces, there must still be a residuum which has worked 
itself off from, or which has never been taken up by the 
wheeling worlds in their forming state, and which must be 
subject to the determination of these forces which are still 
working in the midst of it. Its combination chemically 
with the heat-force has given to it a different composition 
from the primitive ether, and a greater density and con- 
sistency, which forbid that it should blend and mingle 
with this ethereal matter now surrounding the ensphered 
worlds ; it must thus concentrate itself into many detached 
spherical bodies, and which must be of much greater 
rarity than the suns and planetary systems. These 
varied nebulous globes must be moved by the impulses 
of the world-forming forces, yet in constant though dimin- 
ished activity, and must also feel the attractions of any 
world to which they make an approach. As the universal 
ether thus clears itself by these nebulous condensations, 
an indefinite number of such rare bodies, larger and 
smaller, must be floating between the worlds. 

While thus flitting amid the open spaces, it must not 
unfrequently occur that some of these rare bodies will 
come within the attractions of some of the dense systems. 
The way for an entrance is open from any quarter, and the 
rate of velocity may be as various as the compound impul- 
ses which urge them on, but so soon as they come within 
the gravitating influence of any system, they must be sub- 
ject to laws that we can fully estimate, and we may very 
fully apprehend the results that must be determined for 
them. As they come within any system, they must move 



222 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

towards, and ultimately fall into, or pass around, the cen- 
tral body of the system. In thus passing about the centre, 
the nebulous body must take on one of the following forms 
in the track which it makes ; either a hyperbola, a parar 
bola, or an ellipse, the last of which may have so little 
eccentricity as to approach the form of a circle. 

When the compounded impulse and attraction shall 
give the hyperbolic path, the body must pass and recede 
from the central sun in a diverging course from that by 
which it entered, and as it leaves the system on an oppo- 
site side from its entrance, its track must be perpetually 
divergent, and the action of its present forces can never 
lead it back agam within the same system. Should the 
compound agency determine a parabolic course, the enter- 
ing body must also pass about the centre, and approach to- 
wards a parallel direction with the path it entered, and 
keep on its outward way in a perpetually receding journey. 
Many may so pass through and leave a particular system, 
and though ever afterwards modified in direction and 
velocity by it, yet never again visit it. 

But when such a body shall so enter a system that the 
momentum it brmgs, and the attractions it receives, shall 
shape its track about the sun to an ellipse, it is then caught 
by the system, and must henceforth abide within it, unless 
some subsequent acceleration or retardation should induce 
its movement to one of the former curves. It may be 
anticipated that more will pass through a given system 
than win be caught and retained by it, but that many 
floating nebulae must so be arrested by particular plane- 
tary systems, the known conditions are too favorable for 
such a result to j)ermit that the facts should be doubted. 



THE PEINCIPLE OF STELLAR DISTRIBUTION. 223 

Such as enter more nearly in the plane that conforms 
with the general planetary orbits, will meet the most in- 
terfering forces, and he most likely to he kept within the 
system, and any particular system will have the greater 
probability that the larger number of such bodies which it 
takes into its company will be in orbits that are in the 
general plane of its planetary bodies. The conditions ad- 
mit, however, that such bodies may become incorporated 
with the system from any quarter, and that the movements 
may be either direct or retrograde compared with the 
revolving planets. The impulse that brings the body in 
must determine in composition with the attractions that 
the body finds, what eccentricity shall be given to the 
orbit, but the occasions are open for such orbits as shall be 
nearly conformed to the planets, or such as shall in ex- 
treme eccentricity bring their perihelion distance close 
upon the margin of the sun. Some may have their orbits 
far within the system ; some only just within the orbits of 
the outer planets ; and some may stretch their orbits far 
beyond any circling world the system knows. All such 
bodies, occasional or constant, are properly comets. 

21. The Principle of Stellar Distribution. — A care- 
ful insight will determine from the working of the central 
forces how the stars must arrange themselves, and what the 
shapes and localities of the stellar fields, as truly as how 
the planets must be arranged in their respective systems, 
and what shapes the planets and their orbits must assume. 
The principle is of broader application and controls over 
the universal sphere, but it is as thoroughly intelligible and 
readily explicable as the principles which determine the 
bodies and their revolutions in the particular planetary 



224: THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

system. We only need the corresponding care and pa- 
tience in the investigation. 

When the two central forces work in unison, the antag- 
onisms form and maintain in constant tension the spherical 
layers that enclose the centre, and which have their mutual 
counteracting pressure in their equators, and the diremp- 
tions pass out in the equatorial plane and down between 
these spherical layers to the poles, and keep the layers 
separate by this heat-force between them. If the diremp- 
tive action become an exact balance to the antagonist 
action, these spherical layers become not only separated by 
the heat-force between them, but the heat-force permeates 
the layers themselves and just dissolves the molecular 
forces that constitute them, and thus the whole internal 
structure of the universal sphere becomes separable in all 
its molecules on every side, and is thoroughly a fluid. 

In this fluid but still quiescent because equally balanced 
state, the antagonist spherical layers and the diremptive 
separating forces between them all equally counteract, from 
the opposite poles, in the equatorial plane, and the univer- 
sal sphere becomes a composite of two homogeneous hemi- 
spheres, that antagonize altogether with each other in the 
equatorial plane, just as the semi-diameters from the poles 
antagonize with each other in the centre. A diremptive 
action, therefore, now going on at the centre and pushing 
out its divellent heat-forces into the universal sphere, would 
not go through the alternate processes of polar prolation 
and oblation, as before this universal dissolution and fluid- 
ity of the molecular forces. The spherical layers being dis- 
solved they could not each hold the diremption, first in the 
static polar point and turning it thereby to a transverse 



THE PKINCIPLE OF STELLAR DISTRIBUTION. 225 

action in the equatorial plane, and then turning the diremp- 
tive force down between the next contiguous layers to fix 
another static polar point exterior to the first, and so on 
through all the layers successively, making a perpetual 
radiating vibration ; but the diremptive action, instead of 
taking this alternate leaping process from layer to layer, 
will now be able to pass equably right on through the dis- 
solved layers, just where the compounding of the forces 
acting shall determine the direction of the movement. 

And precisely the direction which such diremptive 
movement must take is the one now to be determined and 
followed by the insight, for this going out of the perpetual- 
ly generated central forces, both antagonist and diremptive 
in conjunction, into the fluid molecules of the sphere, and 
thereby more densely filling up the ethereal matter, is the 
very process by which the chemically chaotic matter as 
elementary for the planetary systems with their central 
suns is to be constituted. The determining where in 
the universal sphere this chemical material is to be formed, 
must also be the determining where the systems and their 
suns must be that shall be formed out of it. 

We start, therefore, in this further investigation, with 
the universal matter in a perfectly fluid and quiescent state, 
and with the perpetual generation of the antagonist and 
diremptive forces still going on at the centre, and their 
conjoined stream forcing itself out and permeating aU 
through the ethereal fluid, and we must look at the com- 
position of forces here at work, to determine where this 
thickening and augmenting world-material must arrange 
itself, and become pressed into revolving suns and systems. 
The two hemispheres now antagonize and hold each other 
15 



226 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

in a state of rest, by their balanced counteragency in their 
line of contact in the equatorial plane, and their whole fluid 
content is homogeneous. How then must the augmenta- 
tions of the conjoined antagonist and diremptive forces at 
the centre, distribute and arrange themselves ? 

The hemispherical pressure is generated in the reactions 
of the central antagonism, and in the aggregate must be 
as the cubes of the axes of the hemispheres. The greatest 
pressure, at any point in the equatorial plane, must be at 
the centre, where the hemispherical axes meet and counter- 
work each other ; and any point in the equatorial plane out 
of the centre must have its pressure inversely as the cube 
of its distance from the centre. So, also, the conjouied 
forces generated at the centre, and which are to go out 
against the hemispherical pressure and permeate the ethe- 
real matter of the universal sphere,, have their greatest 
energy at the centre, and any points in the equatorial plane 
will also have the conjoined forces in them inversely as the 
cubes of their distances from the centre. The conjouied 
generated forces at the centre, so soon as they rise to any 
excess above the hemispherical pressure, must move out 
into the ethereal fluid matter of the sphere according to the 
determinations of the compounding of these forces, viz., the 
conjunct central antagonist and diremptive forces crowding 
out and the hemispherical pressure pushing in, and these 
will be equal at the centre, and of equal ratios at the same 
distances from the centre. We have only to follow such 
determinations, and the distribution of the world-material 
must be given. 

But this composition of the hemispherical pressure and 
the crowding out of the central conjoint forces is so compli- 



THE PEINCIPLE OF STELLAR DISTRIBUTION. 



227 



cated, that we here first find the expediency of referring to 
a diagram, and will call to our aid the representations in 
the accompanying figure. 




Let M F W D be the bisection of a sphere through 
its polar diameter D F, and the line of the equatorial plane 
is then M W. The hemispherical pressure is thus from 
the poles D and F and towards the centre C, and holding 
itself statically at rest in the whole line of the hemispheri- 
cal junction at the equatorial plane M W. 

The greatest pressure is at C, and from the direction 
each way in the hemispherical axes D C and F C. Any 
point out of the centre will be one point in the circumfer- 
ence of a sphere of points about the centre, and thus have 
a pressure, compared with the pressure at the centre, in- 
versely as the cube of its distance from the centre. 

On the other hand, the conjoint antagonist and diremp- 
tive forces, generated at C, crowd outward in the opposite 



228 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UKIVEESE. 

direction against the hemispherical pressure T) C and F C, 
and when at all in excess must move out from the cen- 
tre C. The greatest force of this outcrowding movement 
is in the source C, and any point out of the centre must 
have its outcrowding force, as comj)ared with that at the 
centre, inversely as the cube of its distance from the centre, 
since it must be a point in the surface of a sphere of points 
which have been crowded out from the centre. 

Take then the conjoint forces in their perpetual genera- 
tion at the centre, and so soon as they rise to any excess 
of energy above the hemispherical pressure, there must be 
a movement out of the centre, the tendency of which will 
be in the direction of the equatorial plane M W all about 
the centre, and perpendicular to the hemispherical pressure 
at the centre. But as soon as there is an arising out of the 
centre, the hemispherical pressure diminishes on both the 
sides T> and F, and there must be a parting of the conjoint 
forces on each side of the equatorial plane, and a com- 
pounding of one part with the hemispherical pressure on 
one side D, and a compounding of the other part with the 
hemispherical pressure on the other side F, and this com- 
position of forces of equal ratios, inversely as the cubes of 
their distances from the centre, must make the movements 
to be an ensphering, by two spherical strata one on each 
side of the centre, of the compressed ethereal matter into 
two globes whose diameters shall be the two hemispherical 
axes D C and F C. Within these globes of the compressed 
ethereal fluid, the conjoint antagonist and diremptive forces 
cannot crowd themselves, but must move and form their 
stratum, of the new elemental chaotic matter they now 
make, in these two enclosing hollow spheres D H C and F 



THE PEINCIPLE OF STELLAR DISTRIBUTION. 229 

I C. The onward generation of these conjoint central 
forces must then make its movement out from the centre 
C, into the equatorial plane M W above the two spherical 
strata D H C and F I C, and ensphere them by a superun- 
posed stratum upon each of them; and thence onward 
again by other superimposed strata on each side, till there 
shall come, in the growing strata, an equilibration to the 
central generating energy, and the formations of further 
strata will then cease. 

The superincumbent strata cannot be complete spheres, 
but perpetually diminishing portions of constantly enlarg- 
ing spheres, till they come to the universal circumference, 
where they must be the periphery of the two hemispheres. 
For, take any point out of the centre in the equatorial 
plane, as E, and at that point both the hemispherical pres- 
sure and the outcrowding conjoint central forces have alike 
diminished, and are inversely as the cubes of their distance 
from the centre, and therefore the spherical strata E D E 
and E F E must be less each than a complete sphere, by 
the spherical arcs in each whose cords must respectively be 
double the distance E C, that is E E. And the same may 
be shown for any other points beyond E, as B and A, and 
thus on to the circumference M ; where the spherical strata 
on each side at B must be of a larger sphere than those at 
E, but a less portion of a complete sphere by the difference 
of an arc of a sphere whose cord is double the distance B 
C ; and on each side at A a still larger sphere, but less a 
complete sphere by the spherical arc of a longer cord that 
is double the distance A C ; and then at M the spherical 
stratum becomes the extent of the universal sphere, but 
less a complete sphere by the arc of a hemisphere, or an 



230 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

arc whose cord is double the distance M C. The whole 
thickening of the fluid ether and formation of the chemi- 
cally chaotic world-material must be out of and beyond the 
two central globes of compressed ether D H C and F I C, 
and -with the incumbent strata successively of enlarging 
spheres, but diminishing portions of the spheres till the 
hemispherical periphery is reached. 

When this matter has been made too dense for the con- 
joint central forces to penetrate it, then must the stream of 
these forces drive it into whirling spheres, and these 
spheres into suns and revolving systems, and the general 
planes of the orbits of the systems must be at right-angles 
to the tangents of these spherical strata, in which the im- 
pulse of the system-forming forces must move. The place 
for all stars and systems must therefore be in the regions 
beyond the central hollow globes, or globes of pure com- 
pressed ether, D H C and F I C, and within the circuit of 
the universal sphere M F W D. The stellar strata must be 
the thickest near the centre, and diminish as they recede 
towards the universal surface ; and the greatest number of 
systems and their central suns must be in the neighborhood 
of the equatorial plane, and the stars pretty rapidly dimin- 
ish in numbers as they stand back from the equatorial plane 
towards the universal polar regions. Inasmuch also, as the 
outcrowding currents will not work the chaotic matter 
mto suns and systems, until they have diiven it some dis- 
tance back from the equatorial plane, so there must be a 
vacancy of stars on each side of the equatorial plane, di- 
verging from the centre as the matter grows thinner, 
and represented in the figure by the waving lines that 
fade away toward the confines of the universe. 



THE LIFE FOECE. 231 

When the interstellary spaces are again cleared from all 
but the primitive ether, the central forces, though not 
accumulating, will still flow through these ethereal seas, 
and must necessarily waft the floating stars into varied 
island groups, and their distance and positions must give to 
a spectator from any one, all the varied phenomena of stel- 
lar clusters, and unresolved nebulse, and changing position 
without revolving motion. 

LIFE. 

Up to this point we have followed the generating and 
arranging forces working in and from the centre, and stu- 
pendous as have been the results in the determinations of 
universal nature, they have still been merely mechanical, 
and the same operations perpetuated endlessly can never 
lifl^ themselves above the sphere of matter, nor produce 
any thing beyond material and mechanical changes in 
nature. How the universal cosmos may be originated, 
and how it must then be orderly and harmoniously ar- 
ranged by the determinations of its central forces, and the 
wonderful beauty that comes out in the consummated 
structure, may all be apprehended in the rational process 
which we have so carefully and extensively pursued. Still 
the whole, vast and complicated yet orderly as it is, can be 
nothing but a magnificent machine; its whole substance 
is the balance of static, and its whole causal energy is the 
preponderance of dynamic forces. We have the forces in 
which matter is, and the principles of their working deter- 
mining what matter does, but all is mechanically pushed 
or pulled into its shape and proportions. 



232 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE TNIVEESE. 

This meelianism will work on in the worlds, and when 
the superficial strata have cooled and hardened to a per- 
manent crust that admits collected gases to combine and 
form themselves into vapors and mist, and these condens- 
ing in water, which, as superincumbent upon the solid 
earth, gathers itself into ocean beds, and then both land 
and water become enveloped by an atmosphere through 
which everywhere the radiations of light are reflected and 
diffused, there then comes an occasion for a higher order 
of existence than any chemical combinations or crystalline 
concretions can reach. The eternal archetypes of organic 
being are in the Absolute Reason as a distinct kind of ex- 
istence, where the one activity is everywhere within itself 
both means and end, and making the whole to minister to 
each part as truly as each part ministers to the whole, and 
such archetypal being must, for the consistency and satis- 
faction of reason itself, be somehow embodied in objective 
manifestation and actual realization. It behooves the 
Absolute Spirit for reason's sake, or which is just the same 
meaning in other words, for the sake of his own glory, 
that he superinduce upon the forces now working in na- 
ture a higher force, that may take these mechanical forces 
into its service, and use them without destroying them for 
its own organific purposes. They can make exact combi- 
nations in all chemical substances, and build up layer by 
layer about a nucleus the geometrical solids of all crystal- 
line bodies, but in all these cases the work goes on solely 
by accumulation of parts. The least portion of an earth, 
or metal, or crystal, is a unit as perfect in itself as the 
aggregation of the largest bodies, and no possible working 
of such forces in accumulation, can make the whole to be 



THE LIFE FOECE. 233 

an organism, where no part is a unit without the whole 
and the unity of the whole depends upon the presence of 
every part. As well might material nature have origi- 
nated from the empty void at first, as that now this new 
and higher form of existence in an organic being should 
come out of a nature which exists only in mechanical 
forces. From nothing, nothing comes; out of material 
mechanism living organism can never arise. Organic ex- 
istence should be, for reason sees that mechanical forces 
are incomplete without a superinduction of living forces ; 
the Absolute Spirit cannot approve to himself his own 
work, nor rest satisfied in the glory of his own being, by 
stopping in his creating and governing agency with the 
material ; he must put the vital also within the material, 
and so overrule and use mechanical forces, that while they 
continue to be still matter, that matter shall no longer be 
an extrinsic combination, but an intrinsic living assimila- 
tion and incorporation. 

This new creating work is not now needed at the 
great centre of the universe. All that is material and 
mechanical gathers itself for its sustentation and direction 
immediately back within the great central working sources, 
but while these central agencies thus uphold and guide all 
nature's substances and causes, it now needs that the 
Creator put his hand upon nature, and work his origina- 
tions in the midst of the material elements that lie prepared 
upon the surface. That new creation must be such as 
shall vitalize and organize these material elements, and the 
task now is to gain so distinct an idea of this vital force, 
that while it shall fully discriminate itself from all antago- 
nist and diremptive activities, it shaU also be a sufficient 



234 THE ETEENAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

ground for the insight of reason to see how the great prin- 
cij)les of life and organization are determined necessarily 
and universally from it. As the antagonist force was more 
plainly read by the reason than the diremptive, so it may 
be anticipated that the organic forces will be more hidden 
than the mechanical — the principles of life will have a 
deejDer mystery than those of gravity and magnetism, or 
even of heat and light, and must be longer studied before 
they can mature into a completed philosophy. 

22. LiEE a:n AssiMiLATiyE FoECE. — ^The Antagonist 
Activity is a force from its own working; it counter- 
works upon itself at every point, and thus doubles back 
each way upon itself on each side out of the point of antag- 
onism. The du-emptive activity is no force in itself beyond 
the mere point of diremption ; it outworks from itself in 
every point, and thus discedes and disparts from itself on 
each side out of the j)oint of the divellent action. Were it 
to work in a void, it could never fill it, but must perpet- 
ually be leaping each way from the points occupied. Di- 
remptive forces, working in and among antagonist forces, 
become truly determinable forces, for they are held and 
work in determinate spaces by the antagonisms they are 
perpetually encountering. There may thus be perpetual 
solution and combination, resolution and recombination, 
through all time, and to as great a variety as the arith- 
metical permutation of given quantities in the directions 
and degrees of energy shall permit. But the activity we 
now seek in idea must be one that can use these for its 
own ends, and while it makes them work for it, it must 
also work in and through all of them which it uses, so as 
to make them to become the common members of the one 



LIFE AN ASSIMILATIVE FOECE. 235 

£omplete organism. In a word, we must have an agency 
that can take the material agents to itself, and assimilate 
them to each other in itself, and so state or posit them in 
continuation that while it shall be their builder, they shall 
become its body, and both together constitute an existence 
that has unity and identity throughout. It must draw 
that which is without itself into itself, and incorporate it 
with itself, and thus truly it will organize itself in living 
matter. 

That which takes to itself, or draws in from without, 
must originate a movement to which the without may be a 
condition or an occasion, but for which it cannot be a 
cause. There must be indrawmg before there can be ex- 
hausting; the spontaneity of the organific agency must 
thus be on the inside. The living force must first act, or 
the mechanical forces can never become assimilated and 
incorporated ; they might continue to act upon each other, 
but can never else be made to interpenetrate each other. 
We take then a simple spiritual activity, of which we can 
predicate in itself neither extension nor duration, for it has 
no where in order that we might determine place, and no 
when in order that we might determine period ; but we 
put it into the midst of nature's space-filling and time- 
during forces, and let it register its action in them, and 
we can determine for it both a space and a time. Itself 
spiritual, and perpetually in itself maintaining its own sim- 
plicity of agency, and thus wholly incognizable by any 
sense, its working upon the material forces that impress 
themselves upon the senses, gives its results in matter to 
become phenomenal, and thus the modifications which the 
living force makes of matter, may be readily subject. to 



236 THE ETEENAL PEINCIPLES OF THE TTNTVEESE. 

human experience. To the reason's eye, we must there- 
fore subject this spiritual life-force, that we may therein 
determine the principles of its modification of matter, and 
the conditions under which it must buUd its body for any 
sensible manifestation. 

This simple spiritual activity can in itself fix upon no 
place, nor hold itself in any position, and it may thus be 
said to have a want, and must necessarily act for its sup- 
ply, and thus seek some of the material forces agaiast 
which it may work and balance and sustain itself. Though 
all unconscious of its wants and of the adaptations in mate- 
rial forces for its supply and relief, yet will the activity go 
out spontaneously to its appropriate material forces as if it 
had already a sentient guide and dii^ectory. Some of the 
material forces in nature wiU be fit for its use, and will 
readily combine with it, and thus fix it in ^Dosition by coun- 
ter-working with it and truly becoming assimilated in it. 
In thus combining with the life-force, the material force 
win part with some of its own activities, and become 
thereby new substance in its assimilation and combination 
with the living spiritual activity ; and leaving also the ac- 
tivities in the forces used, which become liberated in the 
vital combination, to combine anew with other material 
forces about them, it will thereby change also the sub- 
stances in material nature. There will thus be truly a 
vital chemistry, both in the new living combinations, and 
in the changed combinations in matter from the unused 
activities liberated in the vital action, and recombiniug 
with the material forces about them. It is, however, only 
with the combinations immediately made with the vital 
activity, that we now need to have any dealing. The 



LIFE AN ASSIMILATIVE FOECE. 237 

spiritual activity combines with such material activities as it 
finds fitted to its want, and thus fixes itself to them and in 
them, and they become a new substance by being thus 
taken up in the life-force. Matter and spirit are in this 
truly blended, and the life-force is no longer merely spir- 
itual activity, and the matter is no longer mere gross 
mechanism, but this third thing as a mere substance is in- 
differently, either life embodied or matter vitalized. 

This vitalizing and thus assimilating and corporealizing 
process necessarily makes new voids in the old material 
forces. The life-force has taken in and thus taken away 
from their places the forces and activities it has used, and 
thereby a vacuum at once supervenes between the living 
corpuscle and the mechanical molecule, and the forces of 
nature must at once press up and bring new matter to the 
living action, which is also used in new living combinations, 
and thus the living body continually feeds upon these new 
materials and grows by their successive assimilations and 
incorporations. As an activity combining with the mate- 
rial forces and taking them up into itself, the vital action 
may be termed an assimilative force ; and as thus making 
a void for external nature to pass through up to the work- 
ing activity, it may be known as an indr awing or an hi- 
haustive force^ and either may hereafter be applied as the 
particular application may determine to be the most appro- 
priate. The assimilating is truly the work of the life-force, 
and is first ; the void thus made becomes the occasion for 
the indrawing, and which is truly nothing but the inj^ressing 
of nature, and thus the life-force uses nature in two ways, 
both for its own want in the fixing and stating itself in 
combination with matter, and in making the material mole- 



238 THE ETEKNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE IJNIVEESE. 

cules to press themselves througli the voids made by former 
assimilations up to the sjoiritual activity, and thereby supply 
new material for further assimilation and growth. 

And inasmuch as the life-force works spontaneously for 
its own wants, so in this must it be an agent working 
toward ends, and determined in its activity by just the 
wants and therefore the ends inherent in it. And this must 
make it a formative force, having a nisus formativus or 
form-making principle in the spiritual activity itself. The 
form in the rain-drop, and in the crystal, is in all the many 
drops of the shower and in all the many portions of the 
crystal, but the form in the Hving body is one already in 
the life-force, and works itself out and registers itself in the 
living body. All living forms are thus determined in the 
specific life-force, and the whole body must be built up as a 
self-realizing product of the spiiit. General resemblances 
may enable to classify living bodies into their kingdom, 
class, order, tribe, family, and genus. These classifications 
rest on extrinsic and contingent relationships, but where 
the distinction is that of type in the primitive vital force, 
and which is brought out in manifestation in the progeni- 
tor, and is individually carried down through all the de- 
scendants, the classification is then of specific difierences 
and not of general resemblances, and is first into different 
species, these species into different races, and these into 
different varieties. 

When the specific fife-force is once embodied in its or- 
ganized material assimilations, it must keep on ever work- 
ing in the same body, growing as it extends itself in new 
combinations, and when these augmented combinations 
have extended so far as to equalize the assimilative force, 



LIFE AN ASSIMILATIVE FORCE. 239 

and balance the new assimilations only against the old 
absorptions and exclusions, the body has then come to its 
adult and mature stature, and while ceasing its growth it 
will perpetuate its form and proportipns. When the bal- 
ance turns against the life-force, and from disease or age 
the assimilations cannot repair the lesions, the body must 
decay and the life-force become disembodied. As the life- 
force overruled and used the material forces, so in all cases 
of partial or total disembodiment, the material forces 
again take on their old unhindered working, and what was 
living body becomes again dead mechanical matter, and 
falls into the conditioned successions and changes of its old 
mechanical forces, and we have death and dissolution. 

But as the death and dissolution of the individual 
occurs, provision must be made for the generation of suc- 
cessors and thereby the perpetuation of the species. From 
the ancestral stock there must be the setting off an instal- 
ment of the life force in a new germ, and which may begin 
its own process of assimilation and growth, and instead of 
stating or positing itself in its parental body, may separate 
itself wholly from that, and buUd up to maturity its own 
independent body, and thus the species propagate its suc- 
cessive generations. In order to such generation, the prin- 
ciple of sex is necessary. The life-force in the one sex 
must go over into some prepared receptacle of congenial 
nourishment from the other sex, and a double gender can 
alone procreate a new offspring. Nor is it consistent with 
the demands of reason that the original types of organic 
being should be marred and confounded by a promiscuous 
generation, and the necessities of nature will also second 
this demand of reason, for the receptacle afforded by one 



240 THE ETERNAL PEINCIPLES OF THE "UN-IVEESE. 

gender in a species cannot contain the appropriate nourish- 
ment for the living force imparted by the other gender in 
a different species, and hence opposite sexes in different 
species should not and cannot procreate, or if they do for 
once, the hybrid progeny must be barren. The individuals 
must have their separate gender, the species hves on in the 
generations of both its own sexes. Life must thus work 
on in cycles, and each species perpetuate itself in the per- 
petual propagation of new individuals. The propagated 
life-force, though beguming a new assimilation and incorpo- 
ration of its own, will be still slowly exhausting the original 
energy, and thus at last the species must die out in the de- 
terioration of its members, and new species must be put 
again into nature, to run their cycle conformed to the 
altered chemical combinations in the world of matter 
around them. 

23. The Pei]S"ciple of Vegetable Lefe. — The hfe-fbrce 
is in itself a spiritual activity which works according to 
wants, and therefore in reference to ends, and is first an 
assunilative force by vii'tue of its combining other forces in 
it, and then consequently an indrawing or inhaustive force 
by occasion of the vacuum which the vital combination 
secures between the living corpuscle and the material 
molecules about it, and the forcing in of these material 
molecules upon the point of vital action by their own inhe- 
rent antagonist working, and thus affording a perpetual 
supply to the life-force for perpetual assimilations. Such 
combination of the life-force with the material forces thus 
brought into concretion becomes a germ, and has in it and 
with it all the elements and rudiments of the future mature 
organism. The life-force can make no possible manifesta- 



THE PEINCIPLE OF VEGETABLE LIFE. 241 

tion of itself in its simple spiritual being, and must at once 
seek to combine itself with congenial material forces. Such 
combination in any way and to any degree of completeness 
will be a germ^ and may go on to complete envelopment in 
matter, and then on to complete development in the adult 
organism, but that germ only which is constituted through 
the medium of the sexes, and which by its own growth 
separates itself from the parent stock, is properly a seed, 
and in which the species perpetuates itself by multiplying 
itself into innumerable successive individuals. 

Now, the primitive created germ must have been this 
originated spiritual life-force from the Absolute Spirit and 
its combination immediately with the congenial material 
forces in the place where it was set, and in its simplest and 
earliest form of working we may trace it out from the 
already attained idea, and we shall have the principle of 
vegetation that must determine the laws in the facts of all 
coming experience. This primitive germ, and equally so 
with every matured sexually constituted seed, must have 
its want, and thus its end of acting. Disregarding here all 
specific wants, and which in their distinction only separate 
the different species, we seize only upon the generic wants, 
and thus attain the ends that must be common to all vege- 
table species, or the whole kingdom of plants and trees. 

The first want, and thus the first end to be attained in 
the growing germ, is the perpetual and abundant supply 
of material forces that may be combined with it, and thus 
its first growth and development must be in the direction 
and out into the midst of such congenial material forces. 
These are found in the soil of the earth beneath and in the 
gaseous atmosphere above, and the very necessity of the 
16 



24:2 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

germ must send its roots downward and its stock and 
branches upward. What grows downward will adapt it- 
self to its destined ends in its constituted wants, and the 
root wiU have its distinguishing characteristics, and so what 
grows upward wiU in the same way conform to its end, and 
the branch, bud, and leaf, will have their peculiar charac- 
teristics. All radicles must thus differ from their stock 
and branches, for the wants of the whole plant make both 
necessary, and each a necessity in its own peculiar end for 
the grand general end of the whole, and hence each must 
be fitted for its own function, and the whole plant, root, 
stock, and leaf, becomes an organic existence, having unity 
and identity in every part, and the whole as truly a means 
for the end of each part as each part is a means for the 
grand end of the whole. 

The material forces which are to be combined and as- 
similated, will be diffused through the soil beneath and the 
air above, hence the radicles will separate themselves on 
all sides through the soil, and the branches on all sides 
through the air, or go off successively, and more or less 
diffusively as the plant needs, from a tap-root below and a 
main trunk above. The life-force must thus grow out 
each way from its salient point, and assimilate and incor- 
porate itself in the material plant, as all together in root, 
stock and branches, making one organic identity. This 
order of growth determines the working of the life-force 
perpetually to the surface. The supply of material to be 
used is both exterior and adjacent to the assimilative 
forces, and is immediately combined with them by per- 
petual accretions superficially, except as enclosed and de- 
fended by an exterior rind or bark, which is itself rather 



THE PRINCIPLE OF VEGETABLE LIFE. 243 

an exiivia than the product of a living process. The per- 
petual assimilations all along the course of the living pro- 
cess, must perpetually keep open continuous pores, through 
which the external forces of nature must be constantly- 
supplying the pabulum for further accretions. The central 
part only of the trunk and roots will maintain itself in vi- 
tality and in solid consistency proportioned to the inten- 
sity of the fibre incorporated, but all new growth of the 
plant must be superficial. The ongoing of the assimilating 
process is still perpetually from the sahent point between 
the rooting downwards and the branching upwards, and 
hence along the vacant pores all the way up the trunk 
and branches, the new matter for new assimilations is suc- 
cessively incorporated, and the terminations must be in a 
bud that perpetually turns itself outward in development, 
and maintains itself as a bud in constant self-reduplication. 
The bud must also perpetually leave its vitalized substance 
behind it, posited as a solid and extended branch, which 
henceforth has its concretions on the outside, as the matter 
for vital assimilation comes up in the pores that open on 
the points where the life-force is incessantly working. 

Each bud is thus a complete germ, being a whole with- 
in itself, and each branch a complete plant, so that the 
whole vegetable organism, though in itself a unit, may 
multiply itself by slips, and grafts, and buds, and the one 
plant still remain in vigorous growth, while its detached 
portions may send out new roots in another soil, or have 
their pores kept open for new assimilations, by the life- 
force of another stock within which they may have been 
inserted. And though the root and branch differ from 
each other in their characteristics in their places, yet is 



244: TEE ETEKNAL PKINCIPLES OF THE TJNIYEESE. 

this difference only in characteristic and not of kind, for by 
change of place there may be made a change of function, 
and the branch send off its roots, and the root send out its 
buds and leaves. 

Such must be the principle of yegetative life in general, 
and yet it is manifest that many specific differences may 
abound, and both the demands of reason in securing gen- 
eral order and specific variety, and the adaptations in 
nature of fitting forces to be assimilated by only congenial 
spiritual activities, will make many differing species of 
plants to be a necessity. As the chemical development in 
matter goes on, the hfe-force will be interposed by the 
Creator ; and the incorporation into a germ, and the 
development of the germ to the mature plant, and the 
multiphcation of the plant in its many seeds, will all con- 
form to the maturity and completeness of adaptation in 
the geological process. The earlier will doubtless be the 
least complicated, and while primitive species may be 
enormous both in number and size, yet the more complete 
and perfect types of plants must be reserved for the more 
mature and elaborate chemical and geological prepara- 
tions. Many old species of plants may wholly die out, 
and have their being only in fossil preservations, before 
the more perfect types and specimens of vegetative hfe can 
be introduced, to incorporate themselves into sufficiently 
Sublimated material elements. 

24. The Principle oe Aishmal Life. — The life-force 
elaborates the vegetable organism immediately from the 
chemically prepared elements in matter, and overrules and 
assimilates mere mechanical forces, and combines them by 
its own agency, as a higher form of vital chemistry, into a 



THE PKINCIPLE OF ANIMAL LITE. 245 

new substance that may be called living body. But the 
most perfect and stupendous forms of vegetable life must 
be circumscribed within this sphere of superficial assimilar 
tion and inhaustive supply through the pores made void 
by the used-up mechanical elements. A perpetual indraw- 
ing and incorporating preserves the growth and health of 
the plant, but in this way the life can be that of the plant 
only, whether it be an annual or endure for centuries. 
By no cultivation and favoring conditions can the vegeta- 
ble pass the boundaries of its proper jurisdiction, and leap 
within some higher kingdom. 

But it is clear that reason cannot satisfy its own 
demands in making the vegetable an ultimate end. It is a 
higher form of existence than any merely mechanical force 
can constitute, and is thus an advance in nature ; but 
nature might go on her ceaseless round of chemical 
changes and vegetable products, yet that one plant should 
live and grow only to produce another of its own kind in 
endless successions, would never equal what the Absolute 
Spirit must ask of itself for its own dignity and glory. The 
last individuals of the species would no nearer approach to 
any rational consummation than the first. Reason clearly 
sees the plant to be as truly and necessarily a means to an 
end as the working of mechanical forces, and with the 
mightiest and oldest oaks and cedars before it, the reason 
must still afl&rm, here is nothing that is end in itself, but 
the end is still beyond; what is this majestic, long-lived 
plant for? A higher living organism that may use the 
vegetable, and be its end, must be created. Nature wants 
and reason demands the higher animal kingdom. 

Inasmuch as the animal is to use the vegetable, and its 



246 THE ETERNAL PKINCIPLES OF THE UNIYEKSE. 

assimilations and incorporations are to be of no mechanical 
and chemical elements only, but wholly of such elements 
vitally combined, it is clear that some peculiar character- 
istics must distinguish the working of the life-force in the 
animal from any thing we have found in the vegetable. 
The plants to be drawn in and assimilated, cannot be 
reached by any rootlets in the earth, nor any branches 
and leaves in the air. The first and great peculiarity of 
the animal organism must be, that the vital force be trans- 
ferred altogether from the surface to the inside. The 
vegetable pabulum for its growth and preservation must 
be gathered and retained by the animal, and the work of 
assimilating and incorporating must go on within the 
organism, and hence there must be a stomach and intes- 
tinal canal, with its absorbing and imbibing mouths like 
the radicles of the plant turned inward, and through 
which the forces to be combined in the living flesh and 
bone of the animal body may be taken and brought 
directly to the points of the living and working forces. 
And not only the functions of the roots, but those of the 
leaves in the plant also must now become internal, for the 
whole work of oxygenation or imbibing that which must 
be used in a gaseous form, makes it necessary that provi- 
sion be made for this through all the circuit where the 
inward assimilating process is to be carried on. The func- 
tions of respiration must be transferred from the outside 
leaves to the inside lungs, and while the chylification goes 
on in the stomach, and the prepared matter for combina- 
tion in the living animal tissue is poured into the blood, 
and sent on through the whole arterial circulation, so the 
additional preparation of the oxygenating process must 



THE PRESTCIPLE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 247 

mingle in the same current, and transfer itself to the same 
internal laboratory. The life-force in the animal must be 
housed within, and build up over itself its own dwelling. 

But still farther, for the carrying on of these functions, 
and for the necessary locomotion in gathering and mas- 
ticating its food, the animal life must possess the force of 
muscular irritahility. The life-force has here new wants 
and must be made to work for new ends. The plant may 
so combine the antagonist forces in their polar relations, 
and so temper them in the surroundings of the diremptive 
forces, that external action upon it may induce a contrac- 
tion and withdrawing from the fretting violence, or an 
expansion and approach to the genial influence, and thus 
something of the forms of muscular action may be given 
to the vegetable fibre. But in the animal, a much more 
unequivocal, positive, and extensive muscular force is de- 
manded. The life-force must so arrange in combination 
the polar forces in the molecules which it assimilates in the 
fleshy body of the muscle, that by its own impulse it can 
on any occasion secure that every living corpuscle in the 
muscle shall react upon its own centre of antagonism, and 
thus the whole muscle contract upon itself at its centre 
by this reaction upon itself of every molecular force that 
constitutes it ; and then it must so attach the muscle to 
the bony structure of the frame that it shall lift and move 
the member accordingly. Here is a much higher want, 
and hence a much more complicated adaptation to an end 
than any thing for which the vegetable kingdom can be 
made to legislate. 

With such adaptations, it must immediately foUow, 
that from the irritation of the contents themselves, as in 



248 THE ETEENAL PEIN^CIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

the case of the food in the stomach, the aii* in the lungs, 
or the blood in the heart, the contraction of the muscles 
shall spontaneously take place, and the want be satisfied. 
The forces used and combined by the life-force, are 
abundantly sufficient in their varieties and degrees, to 
secure any possible end of muscular contraction, and the 
Absolute reason has but to endow and adapt the life-force 
in its wants, and supply for it the congenial materials in 
the mechanical forces, and its own spontaneous working 
will determine the issue. The muscle wiU differ from any 
other bodily tissue, and be susceptible to magnetic and 
electric forces from its own polar arrangement of mole- 
cules, unlike any other forms of matter. 

"No animal muscle is self-active. It must receive the 
action that irritates it, and thus induces contraction in it, 
from some foreign force. Its irritation is not at aU sensa- 
tion, but a contraction from some outside invasion, and 
has nothing that yet awakes in any sense, much less any 
wiU. Sense and will may use muscular ii'ritation and con- 
traction, but the life-force also uses it in blind spontaneity, 
before it has itself been elevated to any of the prerogatives 
of a sentient and voluntary existence. Some forms of ani- 
mal life will rise above the vegetable only in the transfer 
of the assimilative force from the surface to the inside, 
having merely an alimentary canal and a contractile capa- 
bility through the whole body, whUe in other rising forms 
of animated existence we approach the completed types 
of organic structure in the possession of all the digestive 
and resjm'atory functions, the perfection of arterial circu- 
lation and free locomotion in the use of both the muscles 
of iavoluntary and voluntary action. From the crawling 



THE PEINCIPLE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 249 

earth-worm to the solid tread of those animals whose 
organism includes the whole frame of spinal, vertebral, 
crural, and brachial attachments, we have all degrees of 
muscular fulness, and yet so far as muscular only, they 
have all but the same contractile irritability from an out- 
side agency. 

There must still be a higher form of vital action, or 
the animal want cannot be satisfied and its ends attained. 
Merely that the content itself in a muscular recej^tivity 
should irritate and induce contraction in the muscle will 
not be enough; the necessity must often occur that the 
animal itself secure the presence of the content, especially 
the aliment for the stomach, and thus the occasion for 
muscular motion be furnished before the irritating content 
comes, even in order that it may be attained, and to this 
end there must be the nervous sensibility. 

The molecules in the muscle contract by occasion of 
some foreign action upon them; the hfe-force having so 
combined and attached them, that their contraction and 
motion are the result of direct mechanical forces already 
within them ; but now the life-force must go further and 
combine for itself a material organ that can act, not merely 
when acted upon, but which can upon occasion being 
given act directly back upon itself, and such material 
organ will be a nerve of sensation. The vital force in the 
nerve makes the molecules of the nerve to act back upon 
its own agency, and in this reception of action from its 
OAm action, an impression on itself from its own movement, 
there comes a self-feehng or awakened sensation, which at 
once distinguishes the animal from all forms of vegetable 
life. The existence of a brain and connected svstem of 



250 THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. 

nerves, gives to the life-force a self-centre from whence it 
can act and receive the action, and in this affecting or im- 
pressing itself in its own organism, there is self-reciprocity, 
and thus sentient hfe. 

In a bodily organism so endowed, any want in the 
system awakens some appropriate nerve and makes itself 
to be known as an appetite, and every supply of the want 
also makes itself to be felt as animal enjoyment. This 
nervous sensation is itself an occasion of irritation to the 
muscle, and thus the life-force awakened to feeling in an 
appetite, at once impels the contracting muscle, and loco- 
motion and self-supply succeeds. E'ot only will the 
appetite thus direct the muscle in locomotion, that it may 
bring the body to the place of its desired object, but the 
successive wants direct to all the successive motions, 
which work out their respective ends. In hunger, the 
food is not only attained, but all the muscles necessary for 
grasping, masticating, and swallowing, are set m motion 
by the feeling. The nervous system is the source of all 
the animal susceptibihty. 

When this reaction of the organism upon itself is slight, 
or when that organism is less intensely vitalized, there can- 
not be made a distinction of both the action and reagency, 
and the result must be a mere blind sensation only. The 
action will have more in it than mere muscular irritability, 
for it truly reacts upon its own organism, but yet as undis- 
criminated action and reaction there can be only an in- 
stinct, prompting and directing motion merely through the 
impulses of the sensation itself But when this action and 
reaction is strong and in an intensely vitalized organ, and 
there is thus a capacity to distinctly apprehend the nervous 



THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 251 

reaction, and also that this reagency is itself an induced 
result, there must be given a conscious sensation, a recog- 
nized feeling, and in this the animal sentient life at once 
begins. Animal desire, and not mere instinct, must then 
govern the movement, and the locomotion is guided by the 
sense to the attainment of the objects which minister to the 
gratification of the desire. 

In this there can as yet be given nothing beyond self- 
feeling; distinct sensation, but not self-knowledge. The 
agency and reagency of the organism upon itself is distin- 
guished, and the feelmg is a conscious desire ; but the self 
is not recognized, and thus the animal cannot attain to self- 
consciousness. 

When all these distinguishable ahmentary, respiratory, 
muscular and nervous organisms have been superinduced 
upon the one life-force, and this permeates the whole struc- 
ture which by its inhaustive and assimilating power it has 
built about itself, this structure of many parts must thus be 
made one organic whole, and the separate stomach and 
lungs, the irritable muscle and the sentient nerve, all have 
their membership in and identification with the one body. 
The vegetative force is turned inward in the stomach and 
lungs of the animal, and is thenceforth no longer merely 
vegetative. The superinduced force of irritability as an 
action and reaction of content and organ must be given 
for the uses and ends of this transferred inward vegetative 
process, that thereby there may be secured the presence of 
the constitutive matter, or pabulum, for the assimilating 
activity. Here will be found the lower forms of animal 
existence. The coral animalcula is scarcely other than a 
muscular organism vitalized, acting through its whole 



252 THE ETERNAL PEIXCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

structure by inhaustion and irritation; assimilating and 
incorporating, and then absorbing and secreting, those ex- 
crementitious fabrications, that ultimately make the ex- 
tended and solid islands of the tropical seas. Rising higher 
in animal existence, as the vegetable life is pushed further 
inward, we must have the nervous system for the use of 
the augmented life-force, and here we attain the compara- 
tively elevated form of organic existence in a locomotive, 
masticating, sentient and percipient animal. This animal 
holds all the orders of inferior existence within itself and 
subject to its own uses. Neither the material nor the 
vegetative forces have been lost in the higher superuiduc- 
tions upon them, but we shall find them still unchanged 
except as made subservient to the higher activity. All 
become one in the one organized system, and these are 
successively built up each by their own forces, as creation 
advances and matures. The antagonist and diremptive 
forces make the material world, and the assimilative force 
makes the vital world, and the vital in the material builds 
up its own body superficially as the plant, and through the 
media of muscular and nervous iustrumentahties, also 
builds up a body about itself from the inside as the animal. 
But highly as the existence has become elevated in the 
animal, and the idea of created being has been here ad- 
vanced, still all is within nature, and bound in the con- 
ditioned and necessitated births and growths determined 
for them in their primal constitution. 

25. The Peixciple op Humax Life. — All creation is as 
yet means to ends, and the attainment is not yet made of 
an end that can be self-satisfactory and thus ultimate. The 
antagonist and diremjDtive forces work on and never finish ; 



THE PEmCIPLE OF HUMAN LIFE. 253 

the life-force biiilds up the plant, and pushes out perpetual 
buds in self-reduplication, and throws off its seed after its 
kind in the perpetuation of its species, but at no point does 
the plant turn back upon itself and come to any self-finding ; 
and then the animal inwardly digests and respires, has loco- 
motion and sensation, and a perpetual circulation of life 
and feeling about a centre, but in all this going out from 
and coming back to a centre, there is no capability to re- 
main and retain itself at the centre. So soon as there is a 
self-finding there is also a self-losing, and thus only a suc- 
cessive self-feeling with no self-possession. The most in- 
tense animal sensation is perpetually transitional, and never 
comes to any abiding self-consciousness. All is thus nature ; 
conditioned succession ; determined but interminable births 
and deaths ; and as yet nowhere the capability to rest in 
any consummation. 

"With this reason cannot be satisfied. The Absolute 
Spirit cannot rejoice in his own work except as it is made 
at last complete in itself, and possessing that which has an 
intrinsic excellency that may properly use and exhaust for 
itself all this universe of created means, and be an end in 
which they are swallowed up. Without such a crown on 
nature, her last birth and growth is wholly meaningless, and 
there has been nothing to 's^ovkfrom^ and nothing to work 
for^ and therefore nothing worthy of the Great Architect 
to work out. 

Superinduced upon this animal life, there must be the 
force of reason, which can read principles and law in itself 
and control all animal feeling by them, and hold all of na- 
ture that is in him freely and joyililly subject to them. 
Such a union of the animal and the rational will be the hu- 



254 THE ETERNAL PKINCIPLES OF THE UNIVEESE. 

man / not thing, but person ; in nature, and yet supernatu- 
ral. While he can use all nature's means for his ends, he 
can also know and commune with the God who reveals 
himself in nature, as partaking himself of his likeness. God 
may not only express himself in him as in all his works, hut 
may reveal himself to him in ways which none of his created 
works can express, and bring him thus intelligently and 
eternally in adoring communion. 

Nature in the individual has ends for which it works in 
the completion and preservation of the individual; and 
even ends beyoud the individual in the perpetuation and 
melioration of the kind, and which reason would itself dic- 
tate, and thus nature and reason are in these ends at one, 
and the whole humanity may go out spontaneously to gain 
them. But the ends of the reason reach far beyond the 
point to which the animal may follow in individual happi- 
ness and the well-feeling of the race, even to the moral and 
immortal well-being in constant self-approbation and divine 
approval. 

Should the rational bow in bondage to nature as it can, 
and take the end of the animal as its chief good, it then 
becomes merely a servant to nature ; a bond-slave to the 
flesh; but cannot thus become nature, and put off its 
spiritual prerogatives and personal responsibilities. The 
conscious obligation must still press, that this bondage 
cease, and the body be at once brought in subjection, and 
nature put to serve the spirit, and not that the spirit may 
put itself for one hour to yield its end to the lusts of the 
flesh. 

This superinduction of the rational must perfect and 
consummate the animal. The intellectual life through the 



THE PEINCIPLE OF HUMAN LIFE. 255 

sense and the understanding must be thereby lifted above 
any illumination which mere animality can reach. The 
bodily organization must also find in this its perfection. 
All along m the plant, the most perfect of its kind is when 
the interpenetrating life is the most intense and unhindered. 
The animal body is most complete when all the forces of 
vital assimilation, muscular irritation, and nervous sensa- 
tion, are the most freely active. The life-force is the most 
energetic in the germ that contains the rudiments of the 
most complicated organization, and the superinduction of 
higher forces must ever elevate the life in the corporeity it 
inhabits. We must, therefore, find all forms in nature be- 
low ripening upwards toward man. In him must be the 
consummation of all corporeal organism. The archetype 
after which nature has been working comes out at last in 
the human form, and all lower bodies must possess their 
rudiments in nascent progression till they culminate in the 
erect stature and expressive countenance of man. He 
holds dominion over all the material, vegetable, and animal 
creation. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE NECESSAEY LAWS IN THE ACTUAL FACTS OF THE 
UNIVERSE. 

The universe in its eternal principles gives the creation 
in Idea, and in this we know what is possible; hut an 
insight of the universe in its principles does not warrant 
the affirmation that what is so clearly possible to be, actual- 
ly is. A universe so may be ; yea, if a universe of working 
central forces be brought into existence, so it must be ; but 
that the universe shaU so be in actual fact, there is demand- 
ed the exertion of creative Omnipotence. The created 
facts being given, the reason may in them detect the laws 
by which they are governed, and when the insight of rear 
son also determines that these very laws in the facts are 
such as the eternal principles made necessary, we have then 
a true and vahd science of the universe, and may safely 
call the result of our work a Rational Cosmology. This 
attainment of the laws in the facts, and their determination 
as necessary from the foregoing principles, is the business 
of this chapter, and in the accomplishment of which our 
whole work is completed. 

It should be distinctly seen that the Creator himself 
cannot at all be subject to science according to such a pro- 



DEITY NOT SUBJECTED TO SCIENCE. 257 

cess. He is the absolute Author of all that has been so 
made accordmg to eternal principles, and as unmade him- 
self, we are not to search back of him for the principles 
which determine his possible being, and then search within 
him for the laws in the facts which such prior principles 
made to be necessary. Enough that in creation we find 
unequivocal certainty of facts that originated out of nature, 
and not as productions from something already in nature, 
and that the laws of all nature confirm the origination of 
the primal and constitutive forces of the universe to have 
been from a Rational Spirit, and then we have the demon- 
stration both that a personal God is, and in many positive 
particulars what this God is ; but we do not need to at- 
tempt the circumscription of him by a science, that in com- 
prehending the facts in their principles shall enable us to 
say how God is. God is object for the insight of the reason, 
and not at all object for the judgments of the connecting 
understanding. The doom is on this latter faculty that its 
deepest substance must still stand in some lower substra- 
tum, and its highest cause must be the product of some 
previous causation; and from the law of its being and 
working this faculty must be shut up within nature, and 
can by no possibility take the leap outwards to a super- 
natural and absolute Deity. That a God is, and what a 
God is, is enough for rational faith and practical religion ; 
but how God is will never be comprehensible within the de- 
ductions of a discursive philosophy. 

The universe is alone the province and object for sci- 
ence. That is wholly fact ; a thing made ; and in all its 
particular facts there are laws which are necessary from 

the eternal principles which determined them; and thus 
17 



258 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

here only need we look for laws in the facts in what re- 
mains of onr work, just as here only have we attained 
principles prior to the facts in that part of our work which 
has been already accomplished. 

Some of the first sections of the last chapter attain to 
principles of so general a bearing, that we do not need to 
refer to them in this chapter, and attempt to find any par- 
ticular laws in the facts that have been determined by 
them. They have their application more or less to all 
facts, and give law to all facts, and will thus be sufficiently 
recognized in the recognition of the universe itself. Such 
is the case with the general principle " of the space-filling 
antagonist force ; the determination of space and time ; the 
impression of matter upon the senses;, that creation must 
be a nature ; and the universal principles of motion. It is 
not until we come to the 8th section, that we need to take 
up the principles, item by item, and see how exactly they 
have determined the laws which we may find everywhere 
in the corresponding facts of the universal cosmos, as the 
careful observation of philosophical experiment gives them 
to us. 

1. The Law op Material Sphericity. — ^The principle 
given in this section (Ch. II. 8) is, that aU free matter, fluid 
or gaseous, must tend towards a globular form. The 
space-filling forces, generated from. a constant antagonist 
action, must take on this globular form, froni the necessary 
working of the countervailing activities at the centre. 
The immutable laws of motion secure that, as new forces 
are generated by each activity pushing the other back u|)on 
itself, so these generated forces must every; way expand 
from the generating point, and successively, layer after 



LAW OF MATERIAL SPHEEICITT. 259 

layer, ensphere themselves about it. The Absolute Cre- 
ator could make matter take on other forms, for he could 
combine single activities in other numbers and directions 
of working, and thus induce other forms of static equi- 
librium and thereby give other permanent shapes to mat- 
ter ; but if a direct antagonism be taken as the generating 
force in creation, then the free matter, so fast as created, 
must range itself equably about this generating source and 
become a sphere. ; The origination of space-filling forces in 
that manner must fill space in a growing sphere. This 
matter, or space-filling force, must preserve its direct an- 
tagonisms so long as its existence remains. Other forces 
may be superinduced and widely vary its consistency and 
fluidity, but the primitive ethereal matter must ever tend 
towards a globular arrangement of parts, and wherever 
matter shall be left free in its movements before its own 
constituent forces, it must ever be found with this inherent 
law of sphericity. The universal working of the component 
molecules, in their, several antagonisms, must give equally 
balanced centrifugal and centripetal tendencies to every 
separate position in the space filled. And now this princi- 
ple in idea is everywhere the law in fact. 

We have nothing to do with solid matter in its rigid 
state, inasmuch as its component molecules are not free to 
take their positions according to their concentric tenden- 
cies. What the tendency in all solids is, and what the re- 
sult would be if free to conform to this tendency, is mani- 
fest from the fact that every detached portion of matter 
has its own central balancing point. Angular as may be 
its surface, there is always a plane that equally divides the 
intensity of its forces, always an axis that equalizes its 



260 THE KECESSAHY LAWS OF THE TJNIYEESE. 

polarity, and alTrays a centre that may sustain all its outly- 
ing portions. Were the mass a free fluid, this fact of self- 
balanced parts evinces that this plane would at once 
become the division between two hemispheres, this axis a 
bisection of that circular plane, and this centre the point 
of equal radiation every way to the circumference. 

But take any fluid matter, and give the occasion for its 
own free movement within itself, and its law of sphericity 
will universally appear. The rain will fall in spherical 
drops until flattened or spattered by meeting a resisting 
surface. The dew-drop wiU stand ensphered on the leaf, 
and only flattened on the side of its su^Dport to just the 
equiHbrium of inherent consistency and specific gravity. 
The di'op of quicksilver, though of much greater specific 
gravity than water, yet from its excess of inherent consist- 
ency will not permit that its weight should flatten it on its 
support so much, but it stands up in relief from its basis 
almost as perfect a globe as if freely suspended by its 
centre. The central antagonism works as the same law in 
the water and the mercury, and perfectly enspheres both, 
but the less consistency of parts in the water gives occasion 
to the weight to make greater interference with the law 
than in the mercury. All fluids are flattened and not 
spherical, only because their masses make the aggregate 
gravity to overwork any common central antagonism, and 
they thus spread theu' parts on the beds that sustain them. 
The proper radius would always secure the sphericity of 
the fluid. 

Vapors, in their most volatile state, have the same law 
of sphericity as fluids. If the vapor be denser than the 
atmosphere that surrounds it, then wiU its parts come 



LAW OF MATEEIAL SPHEEICITY. 261 

under the law, and ensphere themselves about a central 
antagonism, subject to all the disturbing forces in the agi- 
tation of the surrounding atmosphere, and the flattening 
from the specific gravity of the mass as it compresses itself 
on the substance that supports it. If the vapor be lighter 
than the atmosphere in which it floats, then must it be sub- 
ject to the forces in the atmosphere, and the excess of force 
without must overbear its antagonist working within, and 
it can only take the shapes the outward forces impose upon 
it. But if that volatile vapor alone occupied its own space, 
it would as truly evince its law of sphericity as does the 
atmosphere itself, or as does the primitive ether to which 
the atmosphere is only a much denser vapor. The mole- 
cules of vapor no further fly apart by what is termed 
repulsion, than is demanded from the force of the central 
working, which must expel from a given centre to the 
point which exactly balances the reaction of that which 
urges towards the centre. The vapor is only a lighter 
fluid, and all fluids here have the same determined law. 
The shot, which has fallen two hundred feet and cooled to 
a solid in its descent, was rounded to a ball in the first por- 
tion of its passage by this inherent law of its sphericity from 
its own constitutive forces. Not at all because pressed 
from the outside has this form been induced, for this out- 
side pressure has not been on all sides equal; the shot 
would have been the same perfect ball if it had fallen 
through a vacuum, and provided it could thus have parted 
with its heat, it would also have been the same sohd. The 
law of ensphering is from within, even from the working 
of its own constitutive forces, and not that any other mat- 
ter has been doing the forming work. 



262 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE TTNIVEESE. 

There may be globes which have been chipped off from 
the outside when abeady solid, or that may have been 
moulded by an outside pressure, and such will ordinarily 
carry with them the traces of the external violence ; but 
where a solid is found as a globe in a natural state, it is safe 
to conclude that when formed it was a fluid, and allowed 
its central force to permeate its whole structure, and ar- 
range its particles according to the inner law of sphericity. 
So the worlds of our solar system were formed, and though 
now mostly they have become solid bodies, yet the fact 
of their globular forms carries conclusive evidence that 
they took on their shapes when fused, and free to move 
according to the tendencies of their central forces. 

It is more surprising to find the facts of what is called 
capillary attraction unexpectedly leaping within the con- 
trol of this law of fluid sphericity. If a glass tube of small 
diameter be plunged at one end perpendicularly in water, 
the water in the tube will rise considerably above the sur- 
face of the water on the outside. To say that the inner 
surface of the tube attracts the fluid, is only to cover the 
mystery under a word, and explains nothing. The atmo- 
spheric pressure will make the water in the tube rise to 
the height of the outer surface, but such force can do no 
more. The superficial stratum within the tube is acted 
upon, through all its molecules, by the constitutive antag- 
onisms which tend to ensphere themselves about the cen- 
tral force. The inner surface of the tube is as a surrounding 
wall, restraining this ensphering action, and thus neces- 
sarily forcing the fluid further up, and making what would 
have been a sphere to be compressed within a smaller 
diameter into a cyhnder. The fluid must rise, until what 



LAW OF MATERIAL SPHEEICITY. 263 

from the central force would have been a sphere must now 
find its balance in the longer axis of the cylinder, and at 
that point the water must stand. Hence the smaller the 
tube the higher the water must rise, for the central pres- 
sure that would have ensphered, must find its balance in a 
longer axis of the smaller cyhnder. 

If two plates of glass be joined in an acute angle at 
one edge, and open at the other, and these so plunged 
perpendicularly in water that it may rise between the 
plates, we shall have the water within rising above the 
surface of that without, and at an elevation proportioned 
to the nearness of the plates to each other. At the 
angle it will be of the greatest elevation, and regularly 
diminish in height to the outer extremity, making the 
curve to be that of a parabola. And here we have pre- 
cisely the same law, for the central force which would 
ensphere the included water is now resisted by the glass 
walls, and the water, which would have gone out all ways 
from such force, must now rise between the glass plates, 
and the higher in proportion to their contiguity. These 
plates are as the inner surface of the tube, and the antago- 
nist working within gives the same law of rising in height, 
proportioned to the diameter of the space within which 
the fluid is pressed; and inasmuch as the pressure does 
not surround the fluid as a tube, but only partially incloses 
it as by two sides of a triangle, so the height can at no 
place be but to one-half the amount between the plates 
that the same diameters would have given in a complete 
cylinder. The facts and the determination of the prin- 
ciple perfectly correspond. 

If the tube be a long slender cone, and a small portion 



264: THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

of water be introduced at the base, then what would by 
the central force have been ensphered in a drop, must now 
take on the form to which the sides of the tube compress 
it ; and as this is perpetually diminishing upwards, the cen- 
tral working must force the fluid in that direction, and 
make the portion of water inserted at the bottom move 
progressively to the top of the tube, as the facts dis- 
close. 

If the fluid be in a large glass vessel, so that only the 
contiguous surface resists the ensphering force, then we 
shaU have the common fact of the surface of the fluid made 
somewhat elevated in contact with the vessel, and curving 
ofl" concavely at the departure from it. If this fluid be 
of so great consistency that the ensphering force cannot 
drive it up against the side of the glass vessel, then instead 
of rising against, it must tend to ensphere itself back from 
the vessel, and we shall have the fact as in mercury. 
When there is the absorbing of water as in a sponge, or a 
loose string or cloth, the contiguous threads or filaments 
are as the sides of the tube, and the ensphering force 
pushes up the fluid between them, and as there are con- 
stant cross filaments so the fluid is perpetually supported, 
and giving occasion for continual progress through the 
absorbent. 

2. The Law of Geavitt. — ^The force engendered by 
the primal antagonism, must not only ensphere all the 
successive points of force engendered, but must so ensphere 
them that each point out from the centre must react back 
upon the centre in exact static equilibrium. The central 
repulsion is every way equal through the sphere, and 
directly as the intensity of the forces, which is the quantity 



THE LAW OF GKAVITY. 265 

of matter, and inversely as the cubes of the radii, which 
is the distance. The reaction, which is the attraction of 
any point in the sphere, is in the direct line of the radius 
towards the centre from that point, and as the intensity or 
quantity of matter directly, and as the square of the radius 
or distance inversely. Each point in the sphere is thus 
determined in the density of its matter, or the intensity 
of the force which fills it, by the intensity of the central 
antagonism, and this also determines the magnitude of the 
sphere. This reaction, or attraction, of each point towards 
the centre is the result of the compounding of the sphere- 
forming agency, which from the centre so pushes out 
every point of force in reciprocal action with every other 
point, that each is both pressed, and in return presses 
every way. All the particles of the sphere, therefore, 
both repel and attract every other particle, and in the 
above ratios for the repulsion and attraction. 

This must be so in all parts relatively to the universal 
sphere, in all parts of each particular globe relatively to 
its own sphere, and of all particular spheres relatively to 
each other. All matter in every way relatively to all 
other matter must, therefore, gravitate toward all other 
matter, directly as the quantity and inversely as the square 
of the distance. 

Now, that the law in the facts accords with this neces- 
sary principle in the reason's idea, needs no otherwise to 
be noticed here than by a general reference to physical 
science. Long, exact, and extended observation and ex- 
periment have found the facts to be thus, and with not an 
apparent exception, and all inductive philosophy rests upon 
it. Whether in our world or others, so far as facts can be 



266 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

gained, the facts come within the control of this law, and 
this has become so universally admitted that any detail 
would be not only superfluous but intolerable. The only 
thing important is to correct the error and remove the 
absurdity of the common notion of gravity, as itself a fact 
assumed from this apparent concurrence of all facts. All 
observed facts of matter have resolved themselves into or 
rather bound themselves by, and comprehended themselves 
within, this higher fact, that all matter tends to all other 
matter in the above gravitating ratios. 

This fact has been assumed as an ultimate fact from all 
observed facts, but no way opens to the attainment of any 
point of observation that may make this ultimate fact a 
matter of experience. It can, therefore, never be experi- 
mentally verified nor expounded. The conception of it can 
be the product of the imagination alone, and that it may 
not be mere fancy, but a logical product of the discursive 
understanding, the conception is thought out from the 
facts observed in the following process. If there were no 
other forces acting upon matter than attraction, or the 
tendency to come together, then it follows that all matter 
must have long since become consolidated. Such, how- 
ever, is not the observed fact, but worlds stand apart from 
each other with no observed matter to separate them. 
They are found in distinguished cases to revolve one about 
another, and many substances in our world repel other 
substances ; there is then another force the opposite of 
attraction, and , by compounding the movements mduced 
by such forces, the imagination forms the conception how 
worlds may be kept separate, and yet in general connec- 
tion. These opposite forces are then deemed to be so 



THE LAW OF GEAVITT. 267 

arranged that the compounded motion shall he in orhits 
ahout a common centre. All matter may thus continually 
gravitate toward all other matter, and yet instead of com- 
ing together, one portion of matter may move around 
other portions. The conception of gravity, becomes thus a 
centripetal force, and this balanced by a wholly indepen- 
dent and opposite centrifugal force. Whence these forces 
come, is as inexplicable as whence the matter comes ; but 
the conception is of matter, that it is itself inert, and the 
centripetal force is added to make matter in some cases 
come together in bodies, and the centrifugal force is sepa- 
rately added in other cases to keep the bodies apart, and 
the two forces are in other cases to be compounded into 
revolving movements. These are the imagined facts, as 
thought out logically from the discovered facts, and thus 
far only can the discursive judgment, or the logical under- 
standing, frame its imaginings to explain its universal fact 
of gravity. 

But precisely here, as in all processes of the logical un- 
derstanding, the explanation can possibly do nothing but 
interpose the sophism of 2^ petitio principii ; and when the 
sophism is exposed, there is nothmg left but the alterna- 
tives of direct skepticism on one side, or the running to an 
eternal series on the other. The bald skepticism, the blank 
doubt whether philosophy knows any thing, is usually too 
humiliating and unsatisfying, and the common resort is to 
run up a series for some successive links, and then leave the 
mind to delude itself by a sophism that there is somewhere 
up in the indefinite obscurity an absolute stand-point, which 
holds all fast and makes all plain. So we have our central 
earth and revolving moon; and then our central sun and 



268 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIVEKSE. 

revolving planets witli all their moons ; and we can stand 
on our earth, and judge the moon to have a stable position 
from which its gravity does not need to endanger that it 
shall fall off; and then we can take our stand on the sun, 
and the earth that holds the moon is also stable ; and then 
when we ask for the sun's hold-point, we at once send it 
revolving aroimd a higher centre, with a proportionate 
augmentation of repulsive and attractive forces ; and then 
this around some higher and greater ; and finally lose our- 
selves in looking at, without attempting the actual passage 
through, this indefinite regressus. Or perhaps some one 
brings in the Deity as a grand gravitating centre, and says 
of the last great world that it revolves about the throne of 
God ; just as the Stoics said of their empyrean vortices, 
that aU were whirled from the great central pyramid, 
which was the watch-tower of Jupiter. We are seeking a 
substantial static for aU substances ; a central point for all 
gravitating forces; and apparently unconscious that the 
very attemj^t involves an absurdity, we rest at last in a 
worse because profane absurdity, and of which profanity 
we seem equally unconscious, that the S23iritual Jehovah can 
stand in the place and be degraded to the instrumentalities 
of material gravitation. Thus it is that the logical under- 
standing cannot come to any science, because it cannot find 
and know any ultimate. Its last and highest is always yet 
a fact that can have no explanation, because it cannot 
examine itself in the light of an eternal principle. Go as 
far as we may with the empirical conception of gravity, we 
must at last have a centre that will fall down, and a circum- 
ference that win fall off. As the only corrective to this, 
the law of gravity must be an insight of the reason, and 



THE LA.W OF FALLING BODIES. 269 

seen as the one central working that generates both repul- 
sion and attraction in the antagonism that is constitutive 
of matter itself. The centre and the circumference then 
alike hold each other. 

3. The Law of Falling Bodies, and Material Pees- 
SUEE. — The principle of sphericity from the central force 
of antagonism determines the laws that must regulate fall- 
ing bodies, pendulum oscillations, and fluid pressure, and 
which is but the application of the principle of gravity 
to the particular cases. The necessary ratio of increasing 
velocity in the falling body, both in its free descent and 
down an hiclined plane, has already been determined in the 
apphcation of the principle, and the facts in all actual ex- 
periments exactly accord. We have here no occasion for 
particularizing the facts, inasmuch as one invariable law 
prevails, only making the allowance for the density and thus 
the hinderance of the medium through which the body falls. 
The stroke of the fallmg pendulum, and the rise on the 
other side of the perpendicular from the impulse, and the 
ratios of velocity and extremes of oscillation in pendulum 
rods of unequal lengths, have their determination from the 
same principle, and all experience finds the accordant law 
in the facts. So also with the pressure of fluids, both in 
one vessel of either perpendicular or inclined sides, and in 
any number of vessels or branching compartments that 
have their free connections, the principle of sphericity from 
the central force determines the pressure of every fluid 
globule, and thus also the rise and relative surfaces in each 
compartment, and both principle and fact in experience 
perpetually coincide. 

The only important thing to note in all these cases is, 



270 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVEKSE. 

that the laws are no generalizations from many conspiring 
facts, but the facts are seen to have such laws from the 
necessary determinations of the principles in which they 
are all expounded. 

4. The Laws of Mag]nietism. — ^We shall find here 
many different apphcations of the priuciple in varied cir- 
cumstances, and thus as many separate laws as there are 
distinct circumstantial facts. The principles of magnetism 
are given in that part of the force of sphericity which 
works from the equatorial plane on each side out to the 
poles. The central working must force the antagonisms at 
the equator in each spherical layer to flow out in contigu- 
ous meridionar lines quite to the polar points, and thus 
every molecular force in every meridian becomes statically 
balanced in this equilibration of equatorial and polar pres- 
sure. Each molecular force must also have the hue of its 
antagonism, or particular polar direction towards the cen- 
tre, determined by ■ its place in the meridional Hne, viz., 
parallel with the central antagonism in the equator; per- 
pendicular to this central antagonism, or the main axis, at 
45° from the equator, or midway to the pole; and turned 
quite round toward the centre, in the line of the. maui axis, 
at the pole. In this meridional direction of the force froni 
the equator is the principle of magnetic . polarity ; in this 
changing molecular du^ection towards the centre is the 
principle of magnetic dip ; and the compounding of the 
forces of opposite polarity and dip is the principle of mag- 
netic attraction and repulsion; each of which is plain to' a 
clear rational insight. 

It is further carefully to be noted, that the molecular 



THE LAWS OF MAGNETISM. 271 

forces, as mere antagonisms, become cliemically modified 
in their combinations with the diremptive forces or heat, 
and that as such new molecular substances are combined, 
they also become more or less separated from each other 
and insulated in the permeating and dissolving action of 
the diremptive or heat-forces. Every molecule of matter 
must have, however, its particular antagonist or polar 
force, while it may be in contact with some molecules on 
some sides, and separated by the infused heat from other 
adjacent molecules on other sides, or may be wholly insu- 
lated by the heat-force from all adjacent molecules on aU 
sides. , With this fuU apprehension of magnetic priaciples 
in polarity, dip, and reciprocal dynamic influences ; and 
also the more or less separation of each molecule from 
others by heat; we are prepared to take the facts and 
their laws, as given in actual experiment, and see how 
these laws in the facts are necessarily determined in the 
eternal principles. 

Some bodies are found by experiment, when brought 
within : the influence between the two poles of a powerful 
horse-shoe magnet, to arrange themselves . in the same 
plane "svith the axis of the horse-shoe magnet, and such are 
called, magnetics ; other bodies so placed are found to ar- 
range themselves at right angles to this plane of the mag- 
netic axis, and such are called dia-magnetics. It is also 
found that some bodies manifest no susceptibility to the 
magnetic influence when placed as above, and such are 
^didi io loQ indifferent. Careful experiment further dis- 
closes that the magnetics are of the most chemically com- 
pact substances, or such as have the greatest number of 



272 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

cliemical elements in the same volume of tlie substantial 
combination, and the dia-magnetics are the least chemically- 
compact, with few exceptions. The magnetics may be 
mentioned in the following order of diminishing energy : 
iron, nickel, cobalt, manganese, chromium, cerium, titanium, 
paladium, crown-glass, platinum, osmium, and oxygen. 
All other metals, and all other matter, except atmospheric 
air, and such bodies as are carefully compounded to an 
indifferent state, are dia-magnetics. The three first mag- 
netics have 230 chemical elements, and the others 1*70, in 
the same volume of substantial composition as will contain 
from 150 to 74 elements in the dia-magnetics. The 
marked exceptions are of the chemically compact sub- 
stances, copper and zuic, which are dia-magnetics. Among 
the most readily dia-magnetic may be put, in their increas- 
ing order, ether, alcohol, water, mercury, flint-glass, tin, an- 
timony, animal flesh, phosphorus, bismuth. Copper, which 
is chemically compact and yet dia-magnetic, becomes mag- 
netic when combined sufficiently with oxygen, and may be 
so carefully proportioned as to be indifferent. A tube of 
atmospheric aii', and an exhausted or void tube, are both 
also indifferent. 

The principle determines and expounds the facts. The 
compact magnetics have their molecules so bound by their 
central antagonism, and so little dissolved in the diremptive 
action, that they are as a unit in their magnetic working, 
and turn as one body under the magnetic force ; while the 
dia-magnetics have their molecules so msulated in the 
diremptive infusion, that each molecule separately obeys 
the magnetic control, and those on one side of the body 
are swayed by one pole of the magnet, and those on the 



THE LAWS OF MAGNETISM. 273 

other side by the opposite pole, and thus the substance as 
a whole must turn and rest at right angles to the magnetic 
axis. If the substance has such combination in itself as 
exactly to hold the molecules together in such proportion 
as to neutralize their aggregate magnetic action, the body 
must become astatic^ or indifferent. A body may be 
chemically compact, as copper or zinc, and yet the com- 
pactness may admit of the insulation and free movement 
of the joint molecules in such separate pairs or parcels as 
shall put half the aggregate on one side and half on the 
other, and make the compact body still dia-magnetic ; and 
then a combination with other magnetic molecules, as of the 
copper with oxygen, may bind the pairs or parcels as one, 
and either energize as a magnetic or just neutralize as 
indifferent. 

Again, if steel-filings be evenly sprinkled on a paste- 
board plane, and held horizontally over the poles of the 
horse-shoe magnet, they will at once arrange themselves in 
circular lines of collection, having a common diameter 
midway between the poles and at right angles to the 
magnetic axis, and passing each way around over the 
poles, and as the circles enlarge outward, their tendency 
is more and more to extend the circuit beyond the poles, 
and then to turn in each way upon the pole as if to com- 
bine and pass down in the magnetic axis to the centre. 
So, manifestly, the principle of magnetic polarity deter- 
mines the facts must be. The steel-fihngs on the paste- 
board are the index of the forces in a magnetic sphere, as 
if the sphere had been bisected from pole to pole through 
its axis. The magnetic meridians of each concentric layer, 
on opposite sides through the globe, are here laid open, 
18 



274: THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE UNIYEESE. 

and we can trace the path of the central working outward, 
in the cropping out edges of the successive layers, to the 
circumference. The opposite polarities, the shght gather- 
ings of equatorial, and the rapidly accumulating collections 
of both the polar attractions, and the turning dip over 
beyond the poles and passing down the axis on each side 
to the centre, are aU. perpetual laws in every experiment, 
as the principle determines the facts must be. 

The magnetic force is always manifestly in and with the 
magnetic body, and can never be separated and retained 
as if one magnet had been exhausted by what another may 
have received ; and if a magnet be divided, or broken in 
many fragments, each portion is still at once a whole with 
its own polarity, dip, and attractive and repulsive influ- 
ences. The very force of magnetism is its space-filling, 
matter-constituting force ; not a force from some inscruta- 
ble source moving amid dead atoms and registering itself in 
their arrangement, but a force which constitutes and is the 
molecular matter, and thus of course the disposer of it in 
the necessary law of its own movement; and therefore 
always inherent in all matter as truly as gravity itself, and 
in the circumstances as really obeying its law in the dia- 
magnetic, and in the indifferent body, as in the magnetic. 
And as every divided and broken portion of a body at once 
thereby attains its own centre and makes itself to be a new 
gravitating whole, so, necessarily in the same way, must 
each fragment be a new magnetic whole, in the instant out- 
going of its equatorial and polar activities. The law is but 
that which the prior principle has determined. 

A substance that is a magnetic is often found to be in 
such a state as to give no indications of polarity, dip, or 



THE LAWS OF MAGNETISM. 275 

attractive and repulsive power, and such substances are 
said to be quiescent^ or in their statural state. But when 
such substances are placed in proper positions relatively to 
an active magnet, they become instantly or more gradually 
actively magnetic themselves, and such are said to become 
actively magnetic by induction. If such induced activity 
be slow and apparently with much difficulty awakened, and 
when so induced, if it remain in constant activity for a long 
period, the substance so resisting and retaining is said to 
have coercive force, and when the induction is instantane- 
ous on the presentation of the active magnet, and as in- 
stantly ceases when removed, the substance is said to have 
no coercive force. 

As illustrations of the above, there may be given the 
following facts. If a bar of steel, in a quiescent or natural 
state, be in certain specified methods subjected to the in- 
fluence of a powerfully active magnet, it will itself gradual- 
ly become actively magnetic by induction, and will retain 
the constant activity for a long period, thus manifesting a 
high degree of coercive force. But if a bar of soft iron be 
so subjected to an active magnet, it will itself be instantly 
active by induction, and on withdrawing it from the per- 
manently active magnet, it will as instantaneously become 
quiescent, thus showing that it has no coercive force. 

The eternal principle in the reason, which determines all 
magnetic force, at once reveals and expounds these neces- 
sary laws of all magnetic induction. When the molecular 
forces in the magnetic substance are so dissolved by the 
permeating diremptive action, or force of heat, as to admit 
of their being turned in their particular polar directions in 
all ways promiscuously relatively to each other, then is the 



276 THE NECESSAKY LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

substance magnetically quiescent ; "but on tlie presentation 
of a powerfully active magnet, every molecule in the 
quiescent mass is made to feel the force of this magnet in 
its attractions and repulsions and to assume their relative 
polar directions accordingly, and thus the whole bar has its 
molecules so arranged that as a unit it acts magnetically. 
If the molecules were so slightly dissolved and insulated by 
the combined heat as to admit of their changes of position 
relatively, only with great difficulty, then was there much 
coercive force, as in the hard steel bar, and they wiU retain 
their magnetically active position with proportionate tena- 
city ; but if the molecules were so dissolved and separated 
as easily to turn into their symmetrical polar positions, as 
in the soft iron bar, then also will they lose their magneti- 
cally active position as readily. When the steel bar is 
under the inductive influence, if it be repeatedly struck, 
and its molecules suddenly agitated by the blows, its mag 
netically active process is very much hastened. So also, if 
the soft iron bar be hammered and thereby considerably 
condensed, while under the inductive influence, the mole- 
cules are thus hindered in their change of polar positions, 
and there is at once given a proportionally coercive force 
and a retention of magnetic activity. Heat also, when 
strongly applied to an active steel magnet, so far dissolves 
and loosens the molecules and destroys the coercive force. 

In this induction of magnetic activity, the respective 
poles arrange themselves invariably in the order of an 
opposite pole in the induced magnet nearest to whichever 
pole it may be in the inducing magnet. Thus if the boreal 
pole of the active magnet be applied, the end of the bar 
nearest to this in the induced maornet will be an austral 



THE LAWS OF MAGNETISM. 2Y7 

pole, and vice versa. If the active pole be put in the mid- 
dle of the bar, the induced magnet will have one pole com- 
mon to the two halves of the bar and of the opposite kind 
to the applied pole, while the two ends of the bar will be 
alike and of the same kind as the applied pole, making the 
induced bar, indeed, to become two magnets. And if the 
active pole be applied to the centre of a circular plate of 
soft iron, the central portion will be an induced polarity 
opposite to that of the applied pole, and the whole circum- 
ference of the soft iron plate will have a polarity like the 
apphed pole ; the whole plate, indeed, becoming so many 
distinct magnets in every radius, the central ends being all 
of one polarity opposite in kind to the applied pole, and the 
outer ends being all of one polarity and the same in kmd as 
the applied pole. 

The principle of magnetic attraction and repulsion also 
determines this law of inductive polarity, for the applied 
pole with its specific direction and dip must repel similar 
polarities and put them the furthest from itself, and attract 
opposite polarities and place them the nearest to itself, and 
thus make the neutral point, or centre of the magnetic axis, 
midway between the two induced poles. And this same 
prmciple of magnetic attraction and repulsion determines 
the law in another very remarkable series of polarities 
given in peculiar cases. If the quiescent bar have all along 
its length inequalities of density, then will the induced mag- 
netic action form itself into successive centres in these denser 
parts, and with their boreal and austral poles the nearest 
to the applied pole of an opposite kiud, and the furthest 
from the applied pole of the same kind ; thus making an 
induced magnet to have what is called consecutive polarity. 



278 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIYEESE. 

The magnetic axis is often other than the geometric 
axis of the same body, and this fact is also explicable by 
the same principle. If the molecules were all equally free, 
and all equally energetic in polar force, then must the mag- 
netic and the gravitating centres be the same, and the 
arrangement of molecules from the centre be the same, 
and thus in each case the magnetic and gravitating axes 
must be the same; but if some of the portions of the 
magnetic body have facilities or hinderances in the changes 
of molecular polarities in different degrees on opposite 
sides or ends, and these do not correspond with the chemi- 
cal combinations in the same portions as to their density 
and gravity, then must the magnetic and geometric cen- 
tres and axes differ, for the inductive force cannot then 
follow and conform itself to the force of gravity. Thus 
the aggregate forces in the chemical combinations and the 
molecular polarities, the one as gravity and the other as 
magnetism, may have considerable disparity, and thus disa- 
greement in the position of their respective axes, and yet 
no modification of the chemical combinations and mole- 
cular polarities will be likely to occur that will very 
far sunder the one axis from the other, though con- 
stant changes may make perpetual variations in polar 
directions. 

The laws of terrestrial magnetism are determined from 
the same principles as the laws of magnetism in any de- 
tached terrestrial substances. Indeed, the earth is to be 
considered as the great fountain of magnetic force, from 
whence all separate smaller magnets on the earth are in- 
duced. As the universal sphere of the primitive ether 
must be magnetic, so all globes, the base of whose matter 



THE LAWS OF MAGNETISM. 2T9 

is this primitive ether, and which have been formed in the 
free action of central forces, must be also magnetic. So 
the fact is, and so all the laws in the facts of terrestrial 
magnetism are found to be. The earth is a magnet ; of 
opposite poles; its poles repel similar and attract opposite 
poles ; its forces of attraction and repulsion are in the ratio 
inversely as the squares of the distance, and the attrac- 
tions and repulsions, neutralized at the equator, are aug- 
mented gradually each way to the poles ; and the mag- 
netic dip, determining these attractions and repulsions, 
is conformably of opposite poles on opposite sides of the 
equator, and from a tangent to the globe at the equator, 
successively inclined towards and athwart the circumfer- 
ence as it approaches the poles, till at the poles it becomes 
a direct line in the axis toward the centre. 

So also the earth is an inducing magnet, and iron and 
steel bars become magnetic precisely from its induction as 
from other smaller magnets. It has its non-conforming 
gravitating or rotating and magnetic poles and axes, and 
an equator as magnetic cutting twice across its geometric 
equator. While the geometric lines, polar, equatorial and 
meridional, are all regular and conformable, the mag- 
netic lines are all slightly irregular and unconformable 
each to each. The axis is not with regular polar extremi- 
ties, the equator is not in a uniform plane, and the iso clinic 
and iso-dynamic lines are not in any straight direction. 
The whole action of the terrestrial magnetic force evuices 
that it is following a law determined by the modified 
molecular polarities somewhat differently from the gravi- 
tating and geometrically sphere-forming forces. Hence 
its gradualpolar and other changes, and which have not 



280 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OP THE UNIVEESE. 

been, and from their heterogenous sources can never be 
brought into any conforming cycles with the geological 
movements. Isothermic and iso-dynamic lines may be 
nearly conformable, for the equihbrations of light and 
heat, which modify magnetic force, should there leave the 
magnetic force in its most unhindered and equal action. 

5. The Law of Electeicitt. — Inasmuch as the earth 
is a magnet, so must it also be the great source of elec- 
tricity for the experience of those who dwell upon it. 
The earth may have its interruptions, in its regular mag- 
netic arrangements of molecular polarity, quite deep down 
in some of the meridians of its inner spherical layers, but 
if these should occur they would be out of the reach of 
our observation, and perhaps the superincumbent pressure 
may nearly or altogether prevent such internal derange- 
ment. Our experience of electrical phenomena must be 
of such only as are superficial in respect to the earth, and 
indeed in all electrical appearances in any matter con- 
nected with the earth, the phenomena will be on the sur- 
face of the material bodies, for the outer layers become an 
occasion for the ready restoration of any deranged polar- 
ity that may occur within the interior structure. So also 
the earth readily receives and neutralizes all electric ten- 
sion that is positive in any portion of the atmosphere 
within about four feet of its surface, and below this line, 
atmospherical positive electricity is not found. 

But in the surface of the earth, and the material bodies 
upon it, and in the atmosphere and its vapors, we have all 
the occasions for actual polar derangement and magnetic 
interruption, that we were obhged to take only in antici- 
pation when we considered the eternal principle in the 



THE LAW OF ELECTRICrrY. 281 

Idea itself of electricity. Every terrestrial molecule may 
be separated from others by the permeating action of the 
diremptive force, and such isolation by heat gives at once 
occasion for the molecule to change the true meridional 
polar direction, and so far to interrupt the static equili- 
brium, and thereby necessarily induce an electrical tension 
in the contiguous molecules that are in their true polar 
direction. We have here, therefore, all the desired oppor- 
tunity for actually applying to the facts the determinations 
of our previously attained principles. 

Mechanical attrition, thermal expansion, and chemical 
changes, make derangements of corpuscular polarity, and 
in such interruptions of regular polar action, there comes 
at once the tension in the neighboring molecules which 
gives rise to all the phenomena of electricity. As these 
molecules are within the body of the earth at its surface, 
or in detached bodies upon the earth, or as in the atmo- 
sphere itself and the matter surrounded by it, so will the 
peculiarities of the electrical phenomena be varied ; and 
our present business is to see, that these variations in the 
facts have their necessary laws determuied by the eternal 
principles we have beforehand apprehended. 

When this electric tension is excited, if the tension be 
restrained and cannot pass on and restore the interruption, 
the electricity is said to be in a static condition, and when 
it moves on in forcing out this derangement, the electricity 
is dynamic. One substance excited to an electric tension 
must press upon the molecules of a contiguous substance, 
and if they are in such a state of free polarity as to be 
modified by the influence, and become themselves electri- 
cally intense, such secondary bodies are said to become 



282 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

electric by induction. All bodies are somewbat suscep- 
tible to this electric tension by induction, but some 
very sluggishly and slightly, and others very readily and 
strongly ; the former are called di-electrics or non-conduc- 
tors, the latter are electrics, but usually denominated con- 
ductal's. Di-electrics, when surrounding bodies under 
tension, or interposed between them and other substances 
which they might influence, thus cutting off their progress 
and keeping their electricity static, are said to be insulco- 
tors, and the static electrical body is said to be insidated. 
Some bodies when excited always give a positive electric 
tension, and others always a negative, and some bodies 
vary according to the manner of the excitement ; usually 
positive when excited by the harder or more polished 
substance, and negative when excited by a softer or 
rougher substance, but no examination of the one sub- 
stance can previously determine, for it is the whole current 
of the tension operating, or the relative tendencies of the 
molecules in all the substances exciting, that must decide 
which way the induced or excited tension shall have its 
pressure. Some may be of so positive a tendency as in- 
variably to excite the positive tension, and some the 
reverse, and such will be known respectively as positive 
electrics, or negative electrics. Chemical dissolution may 
be made to keep on a perpetual and strong action more 
readily than mechanical friction, and may thus secure a 
continued stream of electric forces ; and such stream must 
always have its two currents in opposite directions, for as 
the one polarity sets in one direction, the opposite polarity 
must counterwork in an opposite direction. The sub- 
stance, as a wire of copper or soft iron, that takes these 



THE LAW OF ELECTEICITY. 283 

currents in tbeir circuits is said to possess electrical poles 
according to the kind of electricity that forms the particu- 
lar current, one the positive pole^ the other the negative 
pole. The electric current is purely a stream of forces, 
and may not carry along in locomotion any of the mole- 
cules it particularly polarizes, any more than the wind 
carries along the standing grain-heads in the waves that 
pass over a wheat-field ; for the molecules merely oscillate 
to and fro on their centres, in the alternations of the pass- 
ing impulses of the two opposite currents in one and the 
same circuit, or in the alternations of induction and neu- 
tralization of one of the currents, each in its own wire. 

But while the molecules of the substance thus alternate- 
ly oppositely polarized, or alternately polarized and neutral- 
ized, do not move in their centres from their places, the 
electric force in its tension does move along the whole 
course of the wire, and like the wind over the grain, may 
carry along other things while it leaves in their places those 
things it makes only to oscillate. If the positive and nega- 
tive poles at the ends of the two wires of a voltaic pile be 
tipped with each its piece of sharpened charcoal, and then 
these points of charcoal be brought in contact, they will 
immediately ignite. If then they be separated at a little 
distance, a stream of light will arch up from their tips 
between them, and by carefully guarding the eyes with 
colored glasses, in the intense light may be seen fine parti- 
cles as dust carried across from the positive to the negative 
pole, and even slight detonations may be distinctly heard, 
as the particles of charcoal are torn off to fly through this 
bright arch. If the charcoal be displaced by soft iron balls, 
and the current be made to pass for some time, the ball at 



284 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

the positive pole will liave its substance pretty rapidly car- 
ried away and be very considerably diminished in actual 
weight. 

This is as the principle determines it must be. We are 
now able not only to say in theory that the molecules 
vibrate, and the torn off particles actually pass fi'om the 
positive to the negative pole, but we can see this to be a 
necessary law, determined in the eternal principle that the 
central force must make its passage from positive to nega- 
tive in the magnetic meridians, and when there is any 
derangement of polarity in any matter connected with the 
earth, this force must press itself upon that point of 
derangement and in its excess of tension must move 
through it, modifying in its course the molecular polarity 
and it may be, on occasion given, taking up particle?^ of 
matter and carrying them along in its circuit across the 
chasm from one pole to the other. 

It is to be remarked of this luminous arch, that it is 
not from any proper combustion of the particles carried 
through it, for the illumination is equally brilliant in the 
absence of all oxygen, and thus excluding all combustion. 
The light is from the decomposition of the material mole- 
cules which the electric force passes through in the atmo- 
sphere, and thereby liberates the heat that had been held 
in combination and which in its freedom becomes a new 
source of illumination. The electrical spark from a dis- 
charged conductor must be from the same determined 
law, and the zig-zag course of the lightmng is of the same 
law of decomposition ; the electrical force, in its passage 
through the material space-filling forces, being resisted and 
consequently deflected. 



THE LAW OF ELECTEICITT. 285 

This principle of active circularity from positive to 
negative circumscribes many facts within its law, that have 
been clearly observed but not expounded. Among them is 
the different shape which the lights, or sparks, at the posi- 
tive and negative poles assume ; that at the positive pole 
taking on the diverging appearance as expanding from, the 
polar point into a brush, while the negative pole gives off 
its Hght divergent, but as if radiating from the polar point 
as a star. This should so be from the order of movement. 
The positive electricity is the moving point of the tension, 
and in passing through any chasm in the conductor must in 
the resisting medium be expanded to a brush, while the 
negative point only as a static sustains the positive at rest 
in their meeting, and must have its light flattened and 
scattered to a star. And so also with the distances from 
the poles where the perforation through an intervening 
substance takes place. If a pasteboard be so placed longi- 
tudinally between the polar points of the wires that it shall 
meet the positive pole in one of its sides and the negative 
pole in the opposite side, the perforation of the pasteboard 
will ordinarily be directly opposite to the negative pole. 
The current makes its passage along the side of the paste- 
board through the atmosphere the most readily, hence it 
passes on quite opposite to the negative pole when it must 
perforate the obstacle and join the negative force to bal- 
ance itself. If this passage be made in vacuo, the current 
takes the pasteboard as its sole medium of conamunication, 
and makes the perforation any where between the poles in 
the most feasible place the pecuharity of the pasteboard 
happens to give, thus determining the law for the obse-ved 
fact, that perforations in an exhausted receiver are seldom 



286 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

opposite tlie negative pole, but at some place between the 
poles and such point never beforehand determinable. The 
character of such perforations is also worthy of note. The 
orifice does not present the appearance of its having been 
forced through hke the piercing of a bodkin, but as if it 
had been forced from the interior of the pasteboard each 
way out to the surface, leaving the edges of the orifice 
burred on each side of the board. If the movement of the 
positive tension had been a substantial movement, carrying 
along some moving body, which body had itself perforated 
the pasteboard, then must the orifice have been a pushing 
in on one side and a burring out on the other ; but inas- 
much as it is only the tension as force that moves, and this 
motion is by a perpetual oscillation of molecules, the mole- 
cules themselves become displaced in the pasteboard and 
the rupture must be as an exjDlosion from the inside. 

So also with the law of difiusion of the electric tension 
over the surfaces of conducting bodies. The induction is 
made while the conductor is insulated, and thus the insu- 
lating di-electric retains the electric tension to the surface 
of the conductor, and as this accumulates by the perpetua- 
tion of the exciting agency, there must be a continually 
augmenting tension on the conducting surface. This is 
found in fact so to be, and to be evenly distributed over a 
spherical surface, and to accumulate at the extremes just 
in proportion as the surface recedes from a spherical form. 
An ellipsoid has an excess at its extremities above that at 
its plane of the shorter axis just in proportion to its eccen- 
tricity, and a needle has almost the entire energy at its 
point, while all solids have the tension at the edges and 
angles in the same excess of their distance from a spherical 



THE LAW OF ELECTEICITT. 287 

centre. This must manifestly so be, since an accamulation 
upon any surface from whence there is no exit must range 
its positive tension on one side in opposition to, and in 
equilibrium with, its negative tension on the other, and 
thus the middle must be as an equatorial plane making its 
two hemispheres of electrical tensions, and which must 
proportionally spread themselves each over its own pecu- 
liarly shaped surface. In this is found all the practical 
utility of points in electrical conductors. 

The electrical tension must always complete its move- 
ment in a circuit, and this circuit must ultimately have its 
two terminations somewhere in the earth. A conductor 
may be insulated, and the surrounding di-electrics may for 
awhile detain the accumulations to the conducting surface, 
but perpetual accumulations must ultimately force their 
passage to a further point of equilibrium, nor can the 
regressus stop in the perpetual accumulations, until the 
ultimate static be a balance for the originating dynamic. 
But this originating dynamic tension is always from the 
earth, in all human experience. The electrical machine 
and the voltaic pile have no permanent force, except as 
they are connected with the great reservoir of all electrical 
energy within the earth's surface. As the exciting agency 
goes on, and the molecular polarity is disturbed in the 
excited point, the tension from the terrestrial connection 
forces in, and the instantaneous opposite polarity arises at 
this point of disturbance and interruption of regular 
polarity. The terrestrial force may urge on to broader 
and broader surfaces, and all the play of the many-league 
surface of the thunder-cloud may be called into action, 
but nothing can balance the originating terrestrial force 



288 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

till tlie circuit puts its opposite end against the earth, and 
finds here the static exactly equihbrating the dynamic, and 
then all is at rest. The circuit may come completely 
round and find its return to the earth in the same connect- 
ing medium that was the passage for the tension out of it, 
as is the case in the common electrical machine, or it may 
run its points to and from the earth at many miles distance 
between, as in the telegraph-wire, but in no way can one 
end balance the other, nor any interruption of polarity 
restore its equilibrium, but by making the positive and 
negative stand somewhere in their extremes in the great 
magnetic courses of the earth. Thus, in fact, the electric 
tension completes the circuit, not by any imagined direct 
course beneath the surface of the earth from point to 
point, but only by falling at each end into the great circuit 
that goes up through the earth's pole and down the axis 
to the terrestrial centre. Each electrical circuit, whether 
through a dozen hands that hold themselves to the chains 
of the common electrical machine, or through the tele- 
graph-wire that may span the Atlantic, is but a portion 
of the earth's magnetic meridian, taken up and turned 
and looped, and its polarities interrupted and used at 
pleasure ; and such use of that very force which from the 
centre enspheres the earth, may to any extent be made by 
man according to its necessitated laws. It is the same 
subjection of the powers of nature to human ends as that 
which employs the magnetic compass, and as the same 
force of magnetism when interrupted in its polarity be- 
comes electrical tension, so that may be used like the 
magnet with reversed poles across the equator into an 
opposite hemisphere. 



THE LAW OF ELECTKICITY. 289 

The combination of electricity and magnetism, whether 
as Tnagneto-electYiG or e/ec^ro-magnetic, has its clear deter- 
mination of necessary laws from eternal principle, as truly 
as either one separately. The transverse polar action of 
the combined energies of magnetism and electric currents, 
which necessarily result from their principles, may readily 
give all the circular mechanical movements which experi- 
ments have disclosed. Thus the opposite hehces of the 
electric current, that have been made to encircle the two 
bent arms of the soft iron bar, must make the modified 
molecules of the bar to take on the precise polarity of the 
magnet, and in the augmenting tensions of the electric 
current, we have the horse-shoe magnet of unrivalled 
energy. The principle of interrupted magnetic polarity 
will give all the principles of electric tension, and this 
determines all laws of electricity. The law as it comes 
out in nature is no arbitrary fact, that might as well have 
been otherwise ; the fact is determined by a principle 
which is seen to be prior to it, and conditional for it ; and 
only in the application of the principle can we have any 
scientific explication of the facts we find. We know 
not only so they are, but we know the reason why they 
are so. 

6. Laws of Heat. — ^The principle of heat is found in 
the necessary radiation of vibratory movements, on all 
sides, from any point where the diremptive activity works 
adversely upon and in the midst of the antagonist activity. 
The same principle in general is the determination of both 
heat and light, and only as the heat vibrations are more 
divellent, and thus occurring in broader spaces and wider 

angles, are they to be found giving their phenomena dis- 
19 



290 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

tinct from the phenomena of light. In those particulars 
where the phenomena have the same laws, the explication 
will best be effected when we come to consider the laws of 
light, but in the instances of distinct law for heat we will 
here note the facts as determined in their principles. 

A prismatic spectrum, which we shall more fully explain 
in connection with the facts of light, may be divided into 
portions of three different degrees in the refrangibility of 
the transmitted rays, the most refrangible being the most 
chemically efficient, the least refrangible the most thermally 
efficient, and the intervening the most luminously efficient. 
They overlie each other at their junctions, but the greatest 
thermal intensity is always low down, and sometimes be- 
neath the luminous part of the spectrum. The slower, 
longer and broader vibrations have most momentum and 
are least refrangible, and these constitute the thermal 
radiations. 

These thermal rays, when passed through an orifice by 
themselves, may be subjected to particular experiments, 
and the laws which govern them in the various particulars 
of reflection, refraction, diffraction, interference and polar- 
ization, are the same as for Hght, except as length and 
rapidity of vibration give the necessary modifications. 

The radiation of heat is superficial only, inasmuch as the 
diremptive action beneath the surface of a body is retained 
by the antagonist working of the molecular forces with it ; 
and such radiation is, as from the princi^Dle it should be, 
from every point in the surface of the heated body. This 
radiated heat is also taken and absorbed by other surfaces, 
so that the interworking is perpetually reciprocal, and no 
heat is lost. The body that gives less than it receives 



THE LAWS OF HEAT. 291 

becomes proportionally hotter, and that which gives more 
than it receives becomes colder, but no body becomes so 
exhausted of its heat that it can radiate no more. The 
most intense pressure and violent friction may be given, 
and which will proportionally quicken radiation, but so 
long as the substance is held in combination it will have 
radiation still going on. The radiations are also reflected 
from polished surfaces and absorbed by rough and uneven 
surfaces, as in the case of light, and the same curvatures in 
each case give diverging or converging rays, and thus focal 
distances, under the same laws. 

When rays of heat are absorbed by certain bodies 
or pass through other bodies, it is from the same laws as in 
the absorption and transmission of light, and yet as the 
light-vibrations are more refrangible than those of heat, it 
should be as it in fact is, that some bodies which readily 
absorb or transmit the one will be very slow in absorbing 
or transmitting the other. Bodies which readily transmit 
heat are termed diathermcmoiis^ and those which resist 
transmission are- called athermanous. Bodies which are 
highly transparent may thus often be very feebly diather- 
manous. In no case is the same substance in equal degrees 
for both, the different refrangibility in each necessitating 
the distinction. Thus rock-salt is the most perfectly dia- 
thermanous of all bodies, transmitting about 92 per cent, 
of all the rays of heat which are incident upon it, while the 
rays of light pass with so much difficulty that the salt is 
simply translucent, not transparent. On the other hand, 
pure water is very transparent, but only very slightly 
diathermanous ; and a plate combined of alum and green 
glass will readily transmit bright light while almost utterly 



292 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVEKSE. 

impervious to heat. In general, that degree of refrangi- 
bility in heat which is also hght will penetrate the same 
bodies, but the heat which is at the same time dark will be 
refused transmission hj many transparent substances. The 
general jDrinciple for light and heat is the same, the modifi- 
cation in the law is from the modified vibrations. 

When the light and heat are absorbed and not trans- 
mitted, they still remain in the body absorbing them, and 
this received diremptive action should make its correspond- 
ent efiects in the body. That light which is less thermal 
in refrangibility will make its greater chemical efiects, and 
that which is more thermal will manifest more heat, but it 
will be only as heat that the efiects in dilatation will be 
exhibited. The retained heat is ever a diremptive activity, 
and except as combined in molecular antagonism so as to 
generate some new substance, it must loosen and separate 
the molecules from each other and thus expand the body 
proportionally to the thermal intensity. Thus as a fact 
solids expand with heat ; and the infusion of heat perpetu- 
ated dissolves and isolates the molecules, and the body 
becomes fluid ; a further absorption of heat and the mole- 
cules are still further dissipated, and the fluid becomes 
vapor. "When the heat is so intense as to decompose the 
chemical combinations in the substance itself, and in this 
decomposition to set free also the diremptive force that 
had been held in affinity with the antagonist forces, and 
thus dissolving the peculiar molecules of the particular sub- 
stance, we have combustion. The molecular structure of 
the substance is dissipated, and the liberated diremptive 
force is flame. 

In this absorption of heat and dilatation of molecular 



THE LAWS OF HEAT. 293 

structure there is a peculiar law in all substances, that the 
passage from the solid to the fluid state by heat, and 
then again the passage from the fluid state to vapor, 
shall be accompanied by the using up and holding in a 
latent and imperceptible form a large amount of the heat 
imbibed, and which is known as the latent heat oi fusion^ 
or of vaporization. This also must all be given ofl" again, 
in an open arid sensible manifestation, before the vapor can 
return in condensation to the fluid, and the fluid to the 
solid. The chemical molecular structure is not changed, 
and thus there is no change of substance in the passage 
from the solid to the fluid and from this to the vapor, 
except as crystallization occurs, and thus no portion of this 
latent heat is used in any new chemical combination. The 
heat that had expanded the solid body only loosened and 
separated the molecular layers in the solid state, but for 
the fluid state it must loosen each molecule and quite sur- 
round and isolate it, and this it does by directly working 
against the antagonist or gravitating forces, and thus mak- 
ing itself to be balanced and neutralized thereby ; and so 
much as is thus used is held, in the fluid, in a latent and 
imperceptible position. This must, of course, all be set 
free again before the fluid can become solidified. 

And so in the fluid state, the molecules of the sub- 
stance have been thus isolated by the combined action 
of the diremptive and gravitating forces, but the molecu- 
lar structure has not itself been loosened ; while now, in 
order that it may pass into the state of vapor, it is neces- 
sary that the forces which chemically form the molecules 
be relaxed and separated, though the chemical combina- 
tion of the molecule is not dissolved but only loosened. 



294: THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIYEESE. 

This necessary use of heat for the expansion of the fluid to 
vapor is, in the same way as before, a neutralizing and 
thus balancing of the diremptive and antagonist activities, 
which luxates and expands the combinations in the very 
chemical molecules themselves, and which in such neu- 
trahzed action of course makes so much of the heat to be 
latent, and which must be set free before the vapor can be 
condensed again to a liquid. Different substances will use 
different degrees of heat for such fusing and vaporizing 
processes, but the law is determined by the very principle 
of diremptive action in the cases themselves. The latent 
heat of fusion and of vaporation is the heat statically used 
in separating the chemical molecules from each other, and 
also their elements among themselves. 

And so with animal heat, the principle of the diremp- 
tive-worldng is clearly determining. The animal body as 
a living organism, is kept at a very steady temperature 
quite different from, and usually much above, the sur- 
rounding material heat. There must therefore be a con- 
tiQual evolution of heat going on within the animal organi- 
zation. The temperature of the blood in the human 
family is about 89° Far. ; of fowls, on an average, about 
105° ; of mammals, above 100° ; and of fish about 70°, all 
of which is much above the usual temperature of the aii* 
or water in which they live. Experiments carefully made 
have proved, that the heat generated in animal life fi-om 
respiration and assimilation, is analogous to that which is 
evolved in the combustion of a common candle. The 
watery vapor, carbonic acid, and azote given off had been 
supphed by the oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, contained 
in the air and food, and the heat produced by the same 



THE LAWS OF LIGHT. 295 

quantity of materials corresponded in the animal assimila- 
tion and the lamp combustion. The life-force combines 
with the forces in the material elements used, and so 
decomposes the cTiemical molecules, that a portion of the 
heat is liberated in the lungs and sent on through the 
organism in the blood, while other elements in these chem- 
ical molecules are incorporated into the animal system. 
Our food and respiration perpetuate this supply for free 
animal heat, just as does the wick, tallow and air perpet- 
ually supply the heat from a burning candle. 

T. Laws of Light and Lijminiferoiis Bodies. — 
Although in the chapter on principles we found the place 
for that of light, after the formation of world-systems, yet 
inasmuch as the essence of light and heat are the same, 
and their principle differs only as the radiating vibrations 
differ, and also since none of the facts that may come under 
the intervening divisions of chemistry, crystallization, 
world-formations, and planetary motions, will have any 
special bearing upon the facts of Ught and their laws, it 
may be the most convenient and appropriate to give these 
facts and laws a place directly in connection with the facts 
and laws of heat. 

The principle of radiating vibrations is the same as in 
heat already considered, and the sources from whence the 
vibrations radiate may be any point where the diremptive 
activities go out in excess of the antagonist forces. To the 
extent that the central energy shall propagate the vibra- 
tions outward and onward, Avill be the dimensions of the 
luminous sphere, and when the antagonist molecules 
equilibrate this diremptive force, the radiation will be 
exhausted. The great sources of light will be the central 



296 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

worlds of the systems, but any minor sources may be 
opened where any accumulations or liberations from 
decomposition of the peculiarly modified diremptions shall 
occur. * 

With no obstructions, the luminous source radiates 
equably on all sides and fills a certain sphere, and that 
sphere is limited from the same central source by the rarer 
or denser media that circumstances may compel the rays 
to pass through. If any obstruction occur, the rays are 
proportionally extinguished in it, and the shadow beyond 
is a perpetuation of extinct light in right lines from the 
source of illuminatibn. If intervening material bodies 
permit the fight to pass through with little extinction, 
they are known as transparent bodies, and if with so much 
extinction as, though still luminous, to destroy the capa- 
bifity of vision, they are called translucent bodies. Where 
the opaque body is of such relative proportion to the 
luminous source, that the rays from one side uf the lumi- 
nous body are extinguished by the opposite side of the 
opaque body, some considerable distance from the point 
where the rays of the other side of the luminous body 
become extinct, and the same thing occur in the whole 
outline of the opaque body, then the shadow will have its 
blended light and shade as a complete outside edge, and 
which is known as the penurnbra. All of which fall under 
laws plainly determined in the general principle. 

K the illuminating radiation strike the surface of a 
body at any angle of inclination, the rays not extinguished 
in the body wiU sfide ofi" or rebound, and still pass on in 
their turned course, notwithstanding the encounter, and 
such rays are said to be reflected. The principles of motion 



THE LAWS OF LIGHT. 297 

in the compounding of forces determine the laws of reflec- 
tion necessarily to be as experience always finds them in 
fact, viz., that the lines of incidence and reflection are of 
the same angle, in the same plane, and on opposite sides 
of the perpendicular to the reflecting surface. Polished 
surfaces reflect with the least extinction, and curved sur- 
faces, reflecting according to the law of perpendicularity 
to the surface, will give converging or diverging rays of 
all varieties, and open the whole field of optical laws in the 
diflerent forms of mirrors. 

The radiation that passes through a transparent sub- 
stance will encounter difierences of resistance in propagat- 
ing the vibrations through the free ether and through the 
denser body, and in different substances the resistances 
will differ, but such resistance will turn the ray from its 
continuous right line, and this break in the line of radiation 
is called refraction. The compounding of forces in the 
principle of motion again determines the laws of refraction 
to be as the facts are always found, viz., the angles of inci- 
dence and refraction are in the same plane ; and the angle 
of refraction is the same in all cases for the same substance. 

A polished curved surface modifies the direction of 
the refracted ray according to the curvature, just as above 
in reflection, and this opens the field of optical laws for all 
differently formed lenses. The different refrangibility in 
the parts of the same lens will bring some rays to a differ- 
ent focal point from others, and this scattermg of the rays 
away from one common focus is termed aberration. The 
correction for aberration by applying another substance to 
the lens of a proportionally compensating degree of refran- 



298 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE imiVEESE. 

gibility is guided by the same necessary law as that which 
necessitates the inconvenience. 

A succession of molecular vibrations in a right line out 
from the luminous source is a ray^ and as the eye must 
take in many such Hnes of molecular vibration at each 
moment of vision, the combination of many such single 
hnes is still called a ray, and of course admits of an analysis 
to just the extent that single lines have been put together 
in synthesis. We have thus single molecular lines of light, 
and combined lines of indefinite numbers in rays of light, 
and many such rays combined are a 'beam of light. A 
prismatic medium receives on the incident surface a variety 
of rays in all their differences of vibration, both in rapidity, 
and in breadth of prolate and oblate expansion. Their dif- 
ferent refrangibility must be determined by their difference 
of vibration, and the reaction of the prismatic medium 
upon them in both its angular expansion of surface and 
inherent substance. These rays will thus come out from 
the emergent surface separated and distinguished according 
to this difference of refrangibility. The slowest and longest 
vibrations will have been the least refracted, and the quick- 
est and shortest the most refracted, and if these prismatic 
rays be now received upon an even surface, they will range 
themselves according to this discriminated variety of vibra- 
tion, the slowest and longest the nearest to the edge that 
gives the refracting angle, and the quickest and shortest 
away from it, and the proportionally refrangible rays filling 
their proper places in the space between. This illuminated 
space is known as the prismatic spectrum^ and the principle 
of diremptive action determines, in the conditions, the law 
of the spectrum, viz., an oblong illumination with its dis- 



THE LAWS OF LIGHT. 

criminated vibrations, and in this its colors. The lower 
extreme is red, and the upper is violet, and from the red up 
to the violet are the orange, yellow, green, blue and indigo. 
The analysis can be carried no further, for another pris- 
matic refraction makes no more separations. Two blended 
colors, as the yellow and green into a blue, may stand over 
against a primary prismatic blue of the same intensity, and 
the prism will decompose the first but leave the last un- 
changed. By the interference of vibrations their lengths 
and rapidity may be calculated. The transverse vibrations 
are for violet about IVO ten-millionth parts of an inch, and 
for red about 260 ditto. The number of vibrations pro- 
gressively in an inch are for violet about 58,000, and for 
red about 38,000. The number of vibrations in a second 
are, for violet about 700 billions, and for red about 450 
billions. This rapidity of vibration, though inconceivable 
in detail, is quite comprehensible in the general principle. 
The diremptive action is from the centre of the luminous 
sphere out every way in the equatorial plane, and thus 
across each hemispherical layer. In crossing each layer 
its oscillation must give vibration to each molecule it pos- 
sesses, and the equatorial plane being always a plenum, the 
central pulsation must be felt at once to the circumference 
and thus through all the layers that the equatorial plane 
crosses, and which would be instantaneous but for the 
elastic compressibility. The rapidity of propagated mole- 
cular vibrations is therefore only so much less than instan- 
taneous, as the plenum of luminous ether is successively 
compressible. 

The prismatic spectrum, thus wholly according to the 
determination of the great principle of the light-force, gives 



300 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIVEKSE. 

also a chromatic aberration from necessary laws, when the 
rays of the spectrum pass through a lens. ]N'ot only is the 
lens diiferently refrangible from peculiarity of curvature 
and substance, but each color of the spectrum is also differ- 
ent in refrangibility, and must make its dispersions in the 
focal divergency, and also on the colored plane. One color 
will take a different position from another, and all images 
must thus be confused within and fringed without, except 
as corrected. 

When two luminous sources have their spheres in such 
a way as to cut each other, the lines of molecular vibration 
must cross and thus interact upon each other. Where 
these vibrations act from each other they must intensify, 
and where they act upon each other they must neutralize 
the vibrations. Such interaction of vibrations gives lumi- 
nous interference. The result must be a series of alternately 
intensified and obscured light, and in the extremes, bright 
light alternating with total darkness. Many pecuharly 
interesting optical phenomena result from this law of inter- 
ference, and are expounded by the principle which deter- 
mines it. 

So also, if rays of light pass the edge of an opaque body, 
the shadow instead of being exactly defined in a right line, 
will have a penumbra in a diverging pencil from the edge 
of the body. The vibrating molecules in their radiation 
past the edge are reacted upon by the obstruction, and a 
new circular vibration commences in it, and forms itself 
about it, and goes on enlarging from it, as would outgoing 
waves of water when passing the edge of an obstruction. 
This diverging penumbra is called an inflection or diffrac- 
tion of light, and has all its laws determined in the great 



THE LAWS OF LIGHT. 301 

principle. When the ray of light passes through certain 
peculiar crystalline bodies, in a certain direction, it becomes 
entirely divided, one part j)assing through without refrac- 
tion, and is called hence the ordinary ray, the other part is 
more or less refracted and called the extraordinary ray. 
As the prism divided the ray into the different colors of 
the spectrum, this crystal substance divides it into two 
rays, homogeneous in color but distinct in planes of polari- 
ty, and which is known as double refraction^ and which 
will be more fully explicable from what follows. 

The two alternate vibrations prolate and oblate of 
every molecule, by the diremptive action, give occasion 
for vision and color from each of the double movements. 
If then, any arrangement turn the molecular vibration on 
one side, and the ray is made to meet the eye with one 
vibration veiled and lost in its transverse movement, there 
will be but the two sides of the vibration luminous, and the 
two ends will be in darkness. The ray being thus luminous 
only in two opposite sides is said to be polarized. This 
may be effected by so turning the vibration in a series of 
refractions and reflections in two mirrors placed to each 
other at certain angles ; or by making the ray pass through 
certain crystalHne substances which destroys one kind of 
vibration or combines both in one ; and also by the peculiar 
double-refraction above noticed. In the last case, the ordi- 
nary ray has one plane of polarization, and the extraordi- 
nary ray another, when the consequent interferences of 
vibration between them darken to each other their oppo- 
site neutralized action. If then, in any of the above cases, 
the ray be made to turn itself round, by means of a revolv- 
ing mirror, it wiU be alternately light and dark on opposite 



302 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE TJNIYEKSE. 

sides, and partially lumiaous in the places between. If this 
double refraction be made to occur in exceedingly thin 
plates of crystal, the ordinary and extraordinary rays will 
be somewhat blended by their lying one upon the other, 
and their passing through the refracting medium at differ- 
ent rates of velocity will bring them to an interference of 
vibrations, and this, with their opposite planes of polarity, 
will give all the beautiful and wonderful phenomena of 
chromatic polarized light, exhibited in some experiments 
with varied axial and acute prismatic crystals. 

But beside these facts and laws of light itself, there are 
some that may be considered as determined in the prin- 
ciple that makes the central bodies of the systems to be 
luminiferous. 

The facts connected with the changing appearances on 
the face of the sun are specially of this description. A 
careful observation of the sun through a telescope will 
ordinarily discover more or fewer dark or colored spots 
upon the sun's disk, and these spots at times become very 
numerous and very large. In one case, by mensuration 
and calculation, an observed spot was found to cover a 
space on the sun's disk 46,600 miles long and 27,960 miles 
broad. They have a determinate region on the face of the 
sun where they appear, and are not found within an equa- 
torial belt that may be imagined like the torrid zone to 
encompass the sphere, but always on each side of such belt 
or zone for a considerable distance, and then beyond these 
two separate belts towards the polar regions the sj)ots 
again do not appear. They are of all shapes and sizes, and 
at times have a very dark central spot with a surrounding 
region of blended light and shade, and at other times the 



THE LAWS OF LIGHT. 303 

whole spot is partially luminous, and though considerably 
darker than the main face of the sun, is still of a faded 
twilight appearance. The darker spots evince in various 
ways that there is a deep opening in a luminous envelope 
about the body of the sun, and that this opening is broad 
at the surface and shelving down its sides by an inclined 
slope to the dark bottom on the body of the sun itself, like 
an immense crater of a volcano. . These funnel-formed 
openings often rapidly change their shapes, and sometimes 
streaks of light stream across them from side to side, and 
such streaks rapidly augment and fill up again the whole 
opening. Around the central darkness there will often be 
found branching arms that run out from its margin to long 
distances within the surrounding illuminated portions. 
Beside these positively dark spots, the contiguous region 
often appears of a waving or mottled aspect, having very 
irregularly defined outlines, and rather as a veil of thicker 
and thinner light thrown over broad portions of the sun's 
face. The luminous matter of the sun's envelope is thus 
evidently seen to be a moving and changeable covering, 
sometimes rarified and sometimes completely broken 
through in pretty well defined regions, and other portions 
of the sun constantly maintaining their brightness, and 
over which the luminous envelope is never ruffled or 
broken. Whatever may be the source of agitation and 
disruption, the efiects only appear about equi-distant from, 
and parallel to, the equator of the sun. 

These facts may very well be occasioned by the manner 
in which we have found the diremptive force must work in 
throwing a luminous atmosphere about the central suns of 
systems. The pressure of gravity in the surrounding ethe- 



304: THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UKRHEESE. 

real matter, in whieli the diremptive activity is so balanced 
that the heat-force is latent, disturbs and destroys the bal- 
ance and forces the diremptive activity into exercise, and 
thus the latent heat becomes manifested heat. The di- 
remptive activity is against the solid sm-face of the sim, 
and out from it into the balanced ether, in a perpetual dis- 
parting or divellency of agency that renews or restores the 
vibrations which had ceased from the equilibration of 
forces. This renewed radiation of the vibrating movement, 
intensified by all the force of gravity that is induced by the 
quantity of matter in the sun, becomes so much quicker 
and sharper that it rises to a luminous state, and is heat 
elevated to light. The action upon the sun and out 
through all the sm-rounding ether must be according to 
the only principle of du-emptive activity, by a polar and 
then an equatorial movement alternately, and thus a con- 
tiQual oscillation from a prolate to an oblate form through 
all the successive outlying spherical layers, so far as the 
radiations shall penetrate. This action upon the superficial 
body of the sun in its rotation must accumulate the lumi- 
nous atmosphere about the equatorial region, and send it 
ofi" each way from thence toward the poles. 

When then we conceive of this luminous atmosphere as 
itself an imponderable fluid, and working off into the sur- 
rounding ether by its radiating vibrations, and perpetually 
supplied from the latent portions in the ethereal mass which 
its gravity is constantly pressing up to the sun's surface, it 
is readily seen that both the diremptive activity and the 
sun's rotation conspu-e to induce just such phenomena as 
these solar spots, and in just such general locahties on the 
Sim's surface. The equatorial portion or torrid zone of the 



THE LAWS OF LIGHT. 305 

sun will be the fullest and steadiest supplied, and the cur- 
rents sent off from this zone, both by the diremptive force 
and the action of the sun's revolution, must necessarily flow 
in eddying streams out mto the two temperate zones on 
opposite sides, and might be expected at times to occasion 
there just such partial openings and deep rents and gaps in 
this luminous cover of the sun, as we find actually to dis- 
close to our observation more or less of the solid and unra- 
diating body beneath it. Such openings ia the illuminated 
covering may last for a number of the sun's revolutions, 
and thus they will appear to move over the sun's disk, dis- 
appearing from one limb and again appearing at the oppo- 
site. These eddying currents must spend themselves in 
these zones, leaving the polar regions perpetually again 
undisturbed and luminous. What we might almost pre- 
dict, we may pretty safely explain, from the necessary 
circumstances. 

The great luminiferous bodies are thus the central suns 
of the separate systems, and which become self-luminous 
stars to each other, while the planetary bodies and their 
satellites have only the sun-light radiated upon them and 
reflected from them. When the radiations or reflections 
are cut off, the planets are forthwith opaque. 

But there are many other though far smaller sources 
of light, independent of all irradiation and reflection, than 
the sun of our system and the distant stars. All direct 
light from self-luminous sources may be conditionally 
reflected or refracted, and the rays revolved so as to hide 
by turns one plane of the vibrations, and thus to become 
polarized; but reflected planetary rays so lose the regu- 
larity of their planes of vibration that they cannot become 
20 



306 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

polarized. The fluid ether and the solid substances of 
matter have much diremptive force or heat combined, or 
latent within them, and whatever liberates this heat and 
sets it again in free action, opens anew the sources of 
radiating heat and light, and makes the dormant to become 
apparent. This is done in many ways. The violent dissi- 
pation of the substance in combustion ; the rapid destruc- 
tion of the substance in chemical decomposition; the disso- 
lutions of the electric and galvanic currents ; all these 
liberate the confined and balanced heat-and-light forces, 
and the light streams forth again as from a new fountaiu. 
All combustible matter is such on account of its compo- 
nent diremptive forces, and the combustion that sets them 
free induces at once the phenomenon of flame, and that 
matter in combustion is thus luminiferous with the primi- 
tive light that may be polarized. Chemical and electrical 
light are alike decompositions and thus liberations of the 
primitive diremptive forces. 'No portion of the diremptive 
force, that has ever proceeded from the great universal 
centre, has gone up again through that centre, and been 
received as pure spiritual activity by the Absolute, nor 
can it otherways be lost in any outward dissolutions and 
annihilations. All hght and heat that ever was, yet is, 
and wherever bound in composition with other forces, 
may again become decomposed and free, and hence new 
streams of light may be made anywhere to flash out 
around us. All matter, it may be, is in this sense lumini- 
ferous, that it holds in composition something of the light- 
force, and which is therefore decomposable, but it is only 
while the passing decomposition goes on, and the freed 
force makes itself to appear, that we call the body light- 



THE LAW OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 307 

bearing or self-luminous. The burning lamp, the light- 
ning flash, or the slow chemical decomposition of putrid 
fish or rotten wood ; all are so many instances of the Hght- 
forces which had ceased to shine because locked in compo- 
sition with other forces, but which now stream forth anew 
because once more set free to push their circling vibrations 
through every point about them. 

The fact that flame is fed by combustibles, and extin- 
guished by non-combustibles, has its law in this, that only 
as the decomposition goes on can the light-force be liberat- 
ed. Water is the great extinguisher of flame while it is 
itself undecomposed in the flame, but let the diremjotive 
action be sufficiently intense to decompose the water, and 
it will add the diremptive forces in its own substance to 
the flames, and make them to glow with greatly aug- 
mented brightness. The extinguisher of flame becomes 
thus fuel to the flame, so sOon as the dormant light-force 
in itself is set free in the decomposition of its own sub- 
stance. In the same way, spontaneous combustion breaks 
out in new flame, when some chemical decomposition has 
let loose the diremptive forces that had been held inactive 
by superior counter-agencies. 

8. The Law of Chemical Forces. — Matter is given 
to us in masses ; chemistry analyzes the masses, and gives 
to us the various chemical substances. These varied 
substances when further analyzed, are reduced to some 
three-score (61) so called simple substances, because the 
chemical solvents have not sufficed to carry the analysis 
any higher. These simple substances, as now considered, 
maybe indefinitely diminished by further more successful 
decompositions. But how many soever the simple sub- 



308 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

Stances may be as resisting further chemical analysis, the 
great principle of all chemical synthesis in its original 
combinations, is that the antagonist and du-emptive activ- 
ities are the only simple forces, and that by the varied 
count er-TTorking of these upon themselves, in direction, 
numbers, and energy of the simple molecular forces, the 
first chemically indecomposable substances are formed. 
These primitive substances, more or less, are then chemi- 
cally combined to constitute all the distinctive compound 
substances in nature, whether earths, metals, or gases. 
Not at all that dead inert atoms are brought into juxta- 
position by some assmned forces, the atoms being the 
things considered and the forces only hypothetic ally imag- 
med, but the intelligently apprehended forces both make 
and move the atoms, and thus it is only for forces that a 
true philosophy has any interest. 

This general principle of the combination of the two 
simple forces in various proportions and directions, to 
constitute what has been improperly understood as truly 
simple chemical substance, has determined a remarkable 
and universal law of the action of chemical affinity. To 
mark this determining principle the more distinctly, let 
it be noted that the parting from any given substance in 
composition, and coming together with some other sub- 
stance in combination, is known as chemical affinity^ and 
the degree of energy with which the separation and new 
combination is effected, is known as the force of chemical 
affinity. All cases of complete combination of the liberated 
substances give what is known as the definite action of 
chemical affinity, and those cases where one substance is 
only dissolved in another, and there continues a solution but 



THE LAW OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 309 

no completed combination, are known as exhibiting only 
an indefinite action of chemical affinity. The law above re- 
ferred to is, that in all cases of the definite action of 
chemical affinity^ heat is evolved. 

The converse law — that in all cases of indefinite ac- 
tion of chemical affinity, cold is induced — has nothing that 
need here to be remarked, as its determination is seen in 
what has before been attained in the latent heat of fusion, 
and of evaporation. Thus when the solid becomes a fluid, 
or the fluid becomes vapor, from the force of heat, much 
of the applied heat-force must be used in separating and 
isolating the distinct molecules, and as just balancing and 
equilibrating itself with the molecular forces it beomes 
fixed and is insensible or latent heat ; but as taken from 
other surrounding substances and thus fixed, it has induced 
sensible cold, or the absence of so much sensible heat. 

But, that all definite action of chemical afiEinity evolves 
heat is of much significance, as being determined directly 
from the principle of the combination of the simple antago- 
nist and diremptive forces to constitute the so called sim- 
ple chemical substances. As an example, we may take 
1 lb. of hydrogen of specific heat 3.2936, and 8 lbs. of 
oxygen of specific heat per lb. 0.2361, and the compound 
will be a watery vapor of 9 lbs., with specific heat per 
lb. 0.8470. The mean would be — 

. 3.2936 + 8 X 0.2361 _ ^^^^^^^ 
9 

The difference then will be 0.8470 — 0.5758^0,2712. 
This amount of heat evolved in the combination must 
have come from its liberation out of the simples hydrogen 



310 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

and oxygen, thereby showing them not to be truly sim- 
ples, but compounds of the simple forces. 

In another instance, we may take 2 volumes of nitrogen 
and 1 volume of oxygen condensed to nitrous oxide of 2 
volumes, and the resolution of the nitrous oxide should 
use up heat thus made latent and thereby induce cold. 
But instead of cold, if wood-charcoal be burned in the 
nitrous oxide, the combustion gives 19623 units of heat, 
and burned in pure oxygen the combustion gives 14544 
units of heat. The nitrous oxide has gained this excess 
of heat over the oxygen, viz. 5079 units, beyond the sensi- 
ble heat that must have been lost or made latent. This 
can only have come from its liberation in what is termed 
the chemically simple nitrogen. 

So in all combustion, the dissolution of the substances 
disengages or liberates a great amount of heat, without 
any condensation and usually with a large expansion of 
volume, as of nitre with charcoal. This law of evolving 
heat cannot be determined from the setting free of any 
latent heat of fusion, but is determined only in the prin- 
ciple that the really simple forces are combined to form 
the so called chemically simple substances, and the decom- 
positions of the chemical atoms themselves in combustion 
give off their constituent portion of the heat-force. 

These simple substances combine and form their various 
compounds, and in the combination the simple substances 
so change their action that the compound is a third thing 
wholly different from either of the separate ingredients. 
In their analysis the simple substances again appear and 
the new substance as a compound is lost. Thus oxygen 
and hydrogen, brought into combination, form the distinct 



THE LAW OF CHEMICAL FOECES. 311 

thing, water; and hydrogen and nitrogen combined give 
ammonia. An analysis of sea-salt gives the simples chlorine 
and sodimn, and potash analyzed gives oxygen and potas- 
sium. The compounds are. as different from their elements 
as these elements are different from each other. N'othing, 
in fact, is truly a definite combination that does not result 
in a new third substance. The affinity of salt and water 
acts only indefinitely in securing a solution but no combina- 
tion. The salt and the water still remain m their un- 
changed substance, and no third thing is given. The 
atmosj^here, which contains 21 parts oxygen and 79 parts 
hydrogen is still rather a conjunction than a combination 
of the elements, and the action of the affinity is indefinite, 
since atmospheric air is not a new definite substance. The 
primal forces which, in their modified working, con- 
stitute the chemically simple substances, change their 
working, and as above seen some of the diremptive force 
or heat is hberated, in their combination into a new sub- 
stance. 

And still further, the principle of antagonist and di- 
remptive activities is seen in determining the laws of 
chemical combination, in that not only must there be defi- 
nite affinities, but these affinities must always be in specific 
proportions of the simple substances. The forces cannot 
blend and stand to each other as static equivalents except 
in certain specific degrees of relative energy, and such sim- 
ples in such proportions are kno^m as chemiGal equivalents. 
The quantity in energy of molecular force, or as the same 
thing, of weight, is thus always, in chemical combinations 
where the simple substances may produce more than one 
distinct compound, in one of the two following ratios of 



312 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

the first substance to the second, viz., 1:1 1:2 1:3 1:4, 
&c. ; or, 1 : 3 1:5 1:7 &c. Some of these chemical equiv- 
alents are as follows : Hydrogen 1 ; Carbon 6 ; Oxygen 8 ; 
Nitrogen 14 ; Chlorine 35,50 ; Mercury 203. 

Thus, hydrogen and oxygen combine in two propor- 
tions, and in each form their definite substance. 1 hy. : 
8 ox.=water. 1 hy. : 16 ox.^deutoxide of hydrogen. 
Nitrogen and oxygen unite in five compounds, and ah in 
their relative proportions only, viz. 14 nit. : 8 ox.==protoxide 
of nit., or laughing gas; 14 nit. : 16 ox.=deutoxide nit.; 
14 nit. : 24 ox.=hyponitrous acid; 14 nit. : 32 ox.=nitrous 
acid; and 14 nit. : 40 ox.==nitric acid, or aquafortis. The 
same weight, or force, in nitrogen is to the weight or force 
of oxygen in these definite affinities respectively a chemical 
equivalent as 14 : 8 : 16 : 24 : 32 : 40. Carbon and oxygen 
again have two compounds, viz., 6 : 8=carbonic oxide ; and 
6 : 16=carbonic acid. Mercury and chlorine have also two 
compounds, viz. 203 : 35550=calomile; and 203 : '71=corro- 
sive sublimate. 

The necessity for this universal law in chemical equiva- 
lents is seen in the great principle of the working of heat in 
the primitive ether. Wliere it only separates the ethereal 
molecules and perpetually forces itself in among them, it 
makes the whole a fluid mass ultimately so comparatively 
dense that the new diremptive current commg in drives 
the old before it, and the chaotic matter is wheeled into 
worlds and systems. These primitive forces then combine, 
in what are chemically simple substances, by such propor- 
tions of energy as are indicated in the chemical equivalents, 
they respectively possess ; and such proportions of energy 
in combination constitute the chemical molecule^ or atom, 



THE LAW OF CHEMICAL FOECES. 313 

and these so-called simple chemical atoms combine, accord- 
ing to their affinities and equivalents, and form the many 
chemically compound substances. The separate workmg 
of both antagonist and diremptive forces in the simple 
chemical atoms determines that the atomic combina- 
tions must be in their definite ratios, and that all such 
atomic combinations must liberate heat from the modifica- 
tion of the atoms themselves. 

The aggregation of the chemical atoms in masses gives 
material bodies of such homogeneous or mixed matter as 
the nature of the atoms determines, and while the force of 
heat has been put in combination with the primitive ether 
in various ratios to constitute the chemical atom, and 
which heat in combination is insensible, there is also in all 
such material bodies more or less heat between the chemi- 
cal atoms, which in its diremptive working keeps them 
apart, and this is sensible heat. The more heat diffused 
the more the body is expanded, and the more the heat is 
abstracted the smaller the volume of matter becomes. If 
the substance be in a fluid state, the cooling process con- 
tracts the volume proportionally till the abstraction reaches 
and begins to exhaust the latent heat of fusion which 
isolates the atoms and keeps the mass fluid, and in the 
exhaustion of this the chemical atoms compact themselves 
by a centripetal pressure, and usually the fluid suddenly 
contracts greatly in volume and the whole is solidified. 
The amount of latent heat effusion diflers widely in difier- 
ent substances, according to the proportions necessary to 
isolate and make fluid the chemical atoms. Thus zinc is 
49,43 units while lead is but 9,27 units, and therefore the 
shorter process of solidilying in melted lead than in zinc. 



314 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIYEKSE. 

The amount of latent heat in water is as much as is needed 
to raise its own quantity by weight through 142° 65 Far., 
and which in its excess makes freezing water so gradual in 
the process of solidifying. In the same matter, the time 
for Hquefying and sohdifying is alike, for the same amount 
of latent heat is given and taken away. 

9. The Laws or Ceystalliiste Foeces. — Fluid matter 
on cooling to a less or greater degree in most cases sud- 
denly becomes sohd, and the solid body takes on the form 
occasioned by grayity or j)ressure. But in the case of 
some matter, fluid or held in solution, there is a sudden 
sohdification which takes on its i^eculiar form wholly irre- 
spective of gravitation or any external compression. If 
salt or alum be dissolved in water, the evaporation of the 
water, or the immersion of some sohd substance, brings the 
dissolved ingredients to a sohd state, having peculiar 
mathematical forms of regular edges and surfaces and sohd 
angles, and we term the process of such solidifying crystal- 
lization. The crystals for the same salt, or other solution, 
have always the same form in edges, sides and sohd angles. 
Even if an already formed crystal be broken in fragments 
of divers shapes, and these be so introduced as to become 
the nuclei for further adhering crystaUizations upon their 
own substance, all the fr-agments will at once accumulate 
upon themselves an augmented crystallization of the same 
old form as the unbroken crystal had presented. 

These forms which different substances take on in crys- 
taUization are some dozen geometrical solids, and which 
may be classified into six different kinds, coustitutmg a 
complete system of crystallography. If one take up any 
philosophical treatise on crystallography, as Draper, or 



THE LAWS OF CEYSTALLINE FORCES. 315 

more elaborate and complete, as Dana, he will have all the 
forms given in regular diagrams, and ranged under the fol- 
lowing systems determined by the peculiarity of then- axes. 
The axis is a line imagined to be drawn through the centre 
of the crystal, and around which all its parts are symmetri- 
cally disposed. There will be a number of such axes in all 
crystals, aild accordmg to the difference of geometrical 
form will be the difference in the number, comparative 
length and direction of the axes. The modification of the 
axes is thus the basis of classification in crystallography. 

There is, 1st. The Regular, or Monometric system; 
having three equal axes at right angles to each other ; and 
containing the three geometrical solids of the cube, the 
regular octahedron and the dodecahedron. 2d. The 
Square Prismatic or Dimetric system; having three axes 
intersecting each other at right angles, and the vertical of 
unequal length to the two equal lateral axes ; and contain- 
ing the two solids of the right square prism and the right 
square octahedron, each having two varieties of axes, one 
terminating in the centre of the sides and the other in the 
middle of the edges. 3d. The Right Prismatic or Trimetric 
system, having three axes of unequal lengths and right 
angled intersections, containing the right rectangular 
prism, right rhombic prism, and the right rectangular 
based and the right rhombic based octahedron. 4th. The 
Oblique Prismatic or Mono clinic system, having three axes 
all unequal, two intersecting at right-angles and the third 
oblique to one and at right-angles to the other, and con- 
tainmg the oblique rectangular and oblique rhombic prisms, 
and the oblique rectangular based and the oblique rhombic 
based octahedrons. 5th. The Doubly Oblique Prismatic or 



316 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

Triclinic system, having three axes all unequal and all with 
obhque intersections, containing the two varieties of the 
doubly oblique prisms, and of the doubly oblique octahe- 
drons. 6th. The Rhombohedral or Hexagonal system, 
having four axes, three of which are equal in the same 
plane and intersect at an angle of 60°, and the fourth or 
principal axis perpendicular to all the others, containing the 
hexagonal prism and the rhombohedron. 

These may sometimes be imperfect on one side or even 
wholly wanting, and are thus Jiemihedrcd ^ and sometimes 
the same substance may be in double or t^vin crystals and 
be paragenic^ if originally so formed, or onetagenic, if so 
formed after the commencement of crystallization ; and also 
the same substance, from difference of temperature or other 
cause, may crystallize in two kmds, and run into two sys- 
tems, and be thus dimorphous. There may also be some- 
times the meeting of opposite faces and thus the turning of 
the axes in opposite directions, which will give to the crystal 
a knee-shaped or genicidated form ; but ordinarily the same 
substance crystallizes in the same form. 

Now, if we consider the combinations of the antagonist 
and diremptive forces in the chemical molecules when pass- 
ing from the fused or liquid state to the sohd, to change 
their activities according to their modified substances into 
the directions of these intersecting axes, we shall have so 
many varied forces, and which must each one build up its 
own crystalline form according to the axial direction and 
degree of energy. The cube will necessarily be engendered 
by a perpetual working, each way from the salient nucleus, 
of a force equally antagonizing m the direction of the right- 
angled intersection of the three axes in the first system ; or 



THE LAWS OF CRYSTALLINE FORCES. 317 

if it regularly diminish in action in the direction of the two 
horizontal axes and contmue constant in the perpendicular 
axis, it must build up the regular octahedron, of the first 
system ; or if it regularly diminish its action in the direc- 
tion of all the axes, it will continually cut off the twelve 
edges of the cube and necessarily ultimately complete the 
dodecahedron of the first system. And so, by a change in 
the action in the working force, according to the direction 
of the axes, and in regularly modified degrees, every form 
in all the six systems will necessarily be engendered from 
the central point or nucleus. The forces will determine the 
forms of the crystal, and at each point will constitute the 
space-filling molecule, and thus be both molecule and gene- 
rating crystalline force in one. The supposition of dead 
atoms of different shape and specific attractions is both 
superfluous and contradictory, for the passive atom is help- 
less without the generating force and wholly useless with 
the generating force ; such force truly doing all the work, 
and constituting all the substance of the completed crystal. 
And still further, this method of generating the crystals 
must determine also the laws of cleavage. Crystals are 
more or less easily split into their laminss that lie one 
above another, and between which there has been in the 
generation of the crystal a separating or discontinuing of 
the substance. The general integrity of the mass is thus 
in certain planes interrupted, and one leaf hes disparted 
from another. The facts are that m the same species of 
crystal, the cleavage gives the same forms and angles. 
The lines of cleavage are parallel to each other. Similar 
forces cleave from each other with equal readiness. The 
cleavage of similar planes has the like polish or lustre. 



318 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIYEESE. 

Such facts are all in full accordance with, the idea of crys- 
tallogeny, for as tlie forces successively range their atoms 
in faces that must be determined by the order of working 
in and from the axes, so the successive accumulations of 
the matter arranged by the forces must be superimposed 
upon itself, layer after layer, in the same dii'ection, and the 
equal action in generating each layer will make both their 
separations and surfaces and pohsh, or otherwise, to be 
similar each to each. Crystals must, therefore, have a 
cleavage in several different directions, in some of which 
the separation will be more readily made than in others, 
but always in. the same directions will be of the same gen- 
eral characteristics. The determining force of generation 
must determine also the cleavage. 

But the determining principle carries us very much 
further in , reading the necessity for the laws in crystallo- 
graphy, ' and even forces to a consilience within the law 
some phenomena hitherto held to be quite anomalous. 

In ordinary sohdification usually the matter suddenly 
and largely contracts on the abstraction of the latent 
heat of fusion. Mercury especially suddenly solidifies at — 
38° 8 Far., the column in the tube of the thermometer 
sinking into a sohd far down within the bulb. But, on the 
other hand, all crystalline solidifications expand, and some 
very greatly at the moment of crystallization. Water 
particularly expands in congelation to about one-seventh 
of its own bulk. The method and progress of expansion 
is very peculiarly marked. From .any pomt of tempera- 
ture above, on, the abstraction o^-Jjieat, it contracts regu- 
larly till it reaches 38° 8,,rein^ijiicg about stationary for 
1° or 2°, and then on further loss.' of heat regularly ex- 



THE LAWS OF CRYSTALLINE FOECES. 319 

Danding till it comes to 32°, when commonly congelation 
occurs, and the expansion to one-seventh of the volume 
immediately succeeds. Very careful cooling without agi- 
tation may delay congelation down to 22° or even lower, 
and the regular expansion goes on; but on congelation 
from a lower point than 32°, the temperature at once 
rises to 32°, and the expansion in congelation is so much 
less at the lower degree as had been gained in the passage 
from 32° to it, so that the whole expansion in congelation 
is the same one-seventh in all cases. 

'Now, why do crystals expand, when all ordinary solid- 
ification contracts the volume of matter? The natural 
conclusion might be, that on this abstraction of the large 
amount of latent heat there would follow a large degree 
of diminished volume. The beneficial results of expansion 
in crystallization are of very great moment. The escap- 
ing of such an amount of latent heat gradually, and giving 
it free and sensibly in the surrounding fluid, makes freez- 
ing to be a gradual process, giving warning and time for 
any needed precautions. And then this large expansion 
forces the congelation to the surface and throws the 
evolved latent heat into the water below, and thus preserves 
the streams and lakes from entire solidity. But has the 
benevolent end been reached arbitrarily, without or against 
an immutable principle ? The grand idea of diremptive 
activity, as we have attained it, enables us to see that the 
principle determining this law of the crystal, is as eternal 
as that which has conditioned any other law of nature. 
The benevolence is seen not in violating principle and 
making arbitrary laws, but in applying principles intelli- 
gently, and putting the right law in the right place ; filling 



320 THE NECESSAKY LAWS OF THE TJNIYEESE. 

the streams and lakes with a fluid that crystallizes, and not 
with melted oils or metals that condense in solidifying. 

The large quantity of latent heat in water secures the 
slow process of congelation by its gradual liberation, and 
as that only sufficed to just isolate the chemical atoms, 
and give occasion for a mutual flowing of each over the 
others, thus making the mass a liquid, without decompos- 
ing the chemical atoms of either the oxygen or the hydro- 
gen, or dissipating them in a vapor, so the evolving of this 
heat has not given any occasion for contraction as its 
latent presence gave no occasion for expansion. It held 
itself just balanced in the midst of and around the atoms, 
but did not crowd nor dilate them. These chemical 
atoms, however, of 1 part hydrogen and 8 parts oxygen, 
have their own natures from the forces which compose 
them, and which must conform to the laws that the 
great principle of their constituent antagonist and diremp- 
tive forces has put within them, and so soon as the latent 
heat that hquefies them is withdrawn, they must act upon 
each other in such compensating affijiities as shall turn 
their direction, and form their axes, and push out their 
atoms to the cleaving surfaces of their peculiar geometrical 
sohd. If their polar direction had been simply in one 
axis, as in the mere antagonist-working, they would have 
hardened directly in towards the centre like the solidify- 
ing of uncrystaUized bodies, but now they have their many 
poles and axes, and they must harden in the dkection of 
their corresponding plane surfaces and solid angles and 
edges. A consolidation towards a central point must con- 
tract the volume of the mass, from the nature of the case, 
since it is an ensj^hering process, and the bringing of every 



THE LA.WS OF CRYSTALLINE FORCES. 321 

chemical molecule to stand together with its fellows in the 
least possible space. Such solidifying must secure con- 
traction of volume in the escaping of the latent heat-suf- 
fusion. 

But the crystal hardens in geometrical solids, and the 
polyhedron must have more space for the collocation of 
the same atoms, and the varied surfaces with their lines 
of cleavage must lessen the density and enlarge the bulk, 
and thus the crystal cannot take on its solid form without 
more or less dilatation, and the amount of expansion will be 
determined from the form and structure of the solid and the 
force of the polar activities. When the cooling has reach- 
ed 38° 8, the latent heat begins so to pass from its neu- 
tralization, that the intrinsic polar activity may also begin 
its agency, and though the fluid state maintains its mo- 
bility till 32° and lower, yet will the polar adjustment to- 
gether with the waking but not yet escaping heat, begia 
their dilatation, and only finish the one whole work when 
they have carried the fluid to its complete congelation. 

The same principle, partially carried out in a sub-crys- 
tallization, must determine the solidification in cooling of 
cast-iron, bismuth, antimony, and some of the alloys, as 
bell-metal, which may take shape from a mould in casting, 
since there is a small expansion in cooling, while most 
metals contract and shrink from the mould in coming to 
their solid state. Where there is a multipolar pressure in 
solidifying there must be enlargement, and where there is. 
only uniaxial action and thus spherical concentration there 
must be dimuiution of volume. There may be the widest 
differences in the points of temperature where solidification 
takes place ; this will determine nothing in dilatation and 
21 



322 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

contraction. Mercury congeals at 38° 8 ; spiiits of alcohol 
at 152°; and English wrought-iron is still soM at 2912°, 
and platiQum at 3082°, and though carbon must have been 
fused to harden in the diamond, yet does this crystal main- 
tain its solid state against the highest heat that can be arti- 
ficially applied. N'ot the point of melting, but the forcefe 
that interact in CO oliQg, determine both the fact and the 
form of the crystallization, and the fact and the degree of 
dilatation. The principle of diremptive action necessitates 
the laws of all crystallology. 

10. The Laws of Woeld-ststems rs" theie Aeeai^ge- 
MENT A^D Movement. — As the stars, which may be as- 
sumed to be the suns of other systems, are seen from our 
terrestrial stand-point, they appear of varying magnitudes, 
and the numbers increase as the magnitudes diminish. If 
it be taken as a general fact that the smaller are the more 
distant, it will be readily apprehended how two stars of 
unequal magnitude may. often appear as joined one to the 
other, and thus presenting the phenomena of doublcrStars. 
But as lying in nearly the same line of vision, and only ap- 
pearing in contact, or nearly so, while one is at a vast 
remove beyond the other, such cases give double-stars only 
as apparent^ and the two bodies have really no special con- 
nection one with the other. More than ..6,000 such ap- 
parent double-stars .have been observed, including both 
hemispheres, but they have nothing remarkable in them- 
selves more than any stars of the same unequal distances, 
except as these happen to lie in nearly the same lines from 
our point of observation. 

But there are double-stars that are not only found ap- 
parently joined in two contiguous beams of light, they also 



THE LAWS OF WOKLD-SYSTEMS. 323 

gradually and regularly vary their mutual positions, and 
thus manifest that they are physically connected in some 
common centre of gravity, and maybe known 2i'& lohysically 
double-stars. More than 650 such physically double-stars 
have been observed, havmg a relative motion with each 
other, and not merely in relation to other stars by parallax 
of our or their change of position. Of these, 16 have had 
the elements of their orbits determined, and some have 
completed more than one revolution since their discovery, 
and have even presented the striking phenomenon of one 
so-called fixed star in occultation by another. Their peri- 
ods of revolution are found to differ very largely, from 30 
years to 630 years. Their immense distances, and especial- 
ly their shining by their own and not by reflected light, 
inasmuch as their light may be polarized, determine them 
to be true stars and not any cases of planetary revolution. 

Now, the laws of such double-stars, revolving the less 
about the greater, or both about a common centre, are 
readily determinable from the principle of their construc- 
tion as given in Chapter II. Sec. 16. They were produced 
by the parting of one stream of the diremptive force, turn- 
ing one part about the other, and the motion thus given 
and its velocity must continue constant in their subsequent 
condensing and throwing off. their planets if they have 
them. Their difference of gravity, and propagation of 
their radiating vibrations through each other's ethereal 
spheres, account for the changes of color so remarkably 
observable in them. 

But inasmuch as the worlds which compose the solar 
system are comparatively near to each other, and within 
the reach mostly of distinct telescopic observation, it may 



324: THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

well be supposed that the opportunity must here be afford- 
ed for furnishiDg the greatest number of instances where 
the determining principle and the thence determined law 
shall come into full accordance. Our solar system can 
alone come within our observation, for its planets and their 
satelhtes are the only ones that can be reached by the 
power of any glasses yet invented. The fixed stars are as 
so many single and solitary worlds, with the comparatively 
few cases of known double-stars as above, which have their 
own relative motions, and it is only from analogy that we 
conclude that any of the millions of fixed stars are also suns 
with their revolving planetary worlds about them. The 
principle of the formation of world-systems induces the ex- 
pectation, that the diremptive force will be sufficient, in the 
vast majority of cases, to occasion an excess of tangential 
or revolving force above the adhesive or gravitating force, 
and in consequence to drive off successive planetary masses ; 
but the facts, if such there be, come within our experience 
only in our solar system. We shall here, however, find 
many conformities of determining principle and determined 
law, and which must have equal validity in all analogous 
cases. 

When the volume and the mass of any world is deter- 
mined, dividing the mass by the volume will give the 
density of the matter contained ; and in the bodies of our 
system there is a general though not an exact and uniform 
increase of density in the matter of the worlds, from the 
exterior to the interior bodies. Taking the density of 
water as the common standard of measurement, we have 
the specific densities of the planets successively as fol- 
lows : — 



THE LAWS OF W0ELD-SYSTEM8. 325 



Neptune, 0,97 

Uranus, 0,9T 

Saturn, 0,68 

Jupiter, 1,36 



Mars, 


5,39 


Earth, 


5,66 


Yenus, 


5,22 


Mercury, 


19,56 



Sun, 1,47. 



The primitive sphere from which these planets were 
successively expelled must in its early constitution have 
had its specific density determined through and through by 
the principle of gravity, making the superficial density pro- 
portioned to the central in the ratio inversely as the squares 
of the distances. When the planets were thrown off in 
succession, though circumstances may have somewhat 
modified this primitive ratio of densities, yet it is not proba- 
ble that any great changes were wrought in the ratios of 
the densities from time to time as the planets were expelled 
from the diminishing circumferences. If they had con- 
densed and hardened equally, there would doubtless have 
been perpetually a very exact uniformity in the ratio of 
their specific densities. But the difference of chemical ele- 
mentary forces and their ultimate combination, incident to 
the positions in the primitive sphere and the times of expul- 
sion, and the different gravities and radiations of heat and 
light under which the successive planets respectively cooled 
and settled down to their present volumes, must have 
induced considerable disturbances and derangements in 
the appropriate ratios of specific density. We need not 
wonder, therefore, when we find Saturn a little less dense 
than either Uranus or Neptune, and Venus a little less 
dense than the Earth, and Mercury so rapidly gaining in 
density upon Venus. The general augmentation is deter 
mined in the great principle of the ratio of gravity in the 



326 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TNIVEESE. 

primitive sphere, and the interruptions in the uniforniity 
have been occasioned by the interference of the contingent 
modifying influences. The control of the determining prin- 
ciple of gravity in the primitive sphere over the specific 
densities of the planets has been as constant and full as 
should have been anticipated. 

The greatest departure from uniformity in augmenting 
density is found in the sun itself. As the great central 
body, its position should make its matter specifically the 
most dense of all, but in fact it is found far less dense than 
Mercury, and only about the consistency of Jupiter, as 
ordinarily estimated. Here is so wide a departure from 
the proposed determining principle, that if we could not 
find any corrections for the common calculation of the sun^s 
density, and good reasons for this comparatively diminished 
solidity in its matter, we should be obliged to leave the 
undue rarity of the sun's substance as an utter anomaly. 
But we have already found fi'om the openings in the solar 
spots that the sun has a luminous atmosphere of several 
thousand miles' thickness, and if this deep, imponderable 
superficies- were subtracted from the received volume of the 
sun before the division of the mass by it, it would make a 
very great augmentation of determined density. Add to 
this the certainty, that both from its immense bulk and 
from its deep surroundings by an atmosphere of heat and 
light, the inner fires of the sun's body must be more in- 
tense, and the cooling process, if progressing at all, must 
be far slower than that of any planet, and the specific 
density of the sun will thereby be brought fully up to the 
point that the great determining principle of gravity in the 
primitive sphere would demand for it. 



THE LAWS OF WOELD-SYSTEMS. 327 

The generally augmenting densities of the worlds in our 
planetary system is as the principle of gravity necessitates, 
and the partial interruptions are the necessary results from 
the apprehended interfering circumstances. 

There is, moreover, a very marked gradation in the 
interplanetary spaces^ making a pretty regular diminution 
in breadth from the superior space between Neptune and 
Uranus down to that between Venus and Mercury, or that 
between Mercury and the sun. These distances deter- 
mined by the distances of the respective planets from the 
sun between which they occur may be found as follows — 
estimated in round millions of miles : 



Neptune, 


2854 


Interplanetary spaces. 


Uranus, 


1822 = 


1032 


Saturn, 


906 = 


916 


Jupiter, 


494 = 


413 


Juno, 


254 = 


240 


Mars, 


144 = 


110 


Earth, 


95 =: 


49 


Venus, 


68 = 


27 . 


Mercury, 


37 = 


31 



This marked gradation, very nearly duplicate in most 
cases, was very early observed, and long since different 
arrangements and appliances have been tried, to make the 
approach towards duplicate ratios of the interplanetary 
spaces to take on a more exact proportion. Kepler knew 
only of the 7 planets from the sun to Saturn, one of which 
was lost, or wanting between Mars and Jupiter ; and he 
tried to find some mathematical explanation for so regular 
an augmentation of their distances by interposing different 



328 



THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE T7NIVEESE. 



regular solids, or imagining the intervals of the musical scale 
between the planets. Bode, of Berlin, assumed the distance 
of Saturn to be divided into 100 parts, and the distance of 
Mercury to contaiu 4 such parts, and then assigning to 
Venus 3 parts and doubling the ratio for the planetary- 
spaces successively beyond, he had contrived a formula 
that very well fitted the facts, and hence came to be known 
as Bode's law of planetary distances. Thus Mercury 
was y^o, Yenus 44-3=y^o, The Earth 4+6=yVo» Mars 
4-f 12=yVo, small planets 4+24=yVo, Jupiter 4:-\-48=jW, 
Saturn 4+96=1^^. 

TVurm pushed the contrivance further, and by a more 
complicated arrangement of parts brought it still nearer 
to the facts. He assumed 387 j^arts for Mercury, and 293 
from Mercury to Yenus, and then doubled for each suc- 
cessive receding planet, giving the following formula — 







Attained parts. 


Actual parts. 


Mercury, 


387 


387 


387 


Yenus, 


387+ 


293=680 


723 


The Earth, 


387+ 


2X293=973 


1000 


Mars, 


387+ 


4X293=1559 


1523 


Juno, 


387+ 


8X293=2731 


2668 


Jupiter, 


387+ 


16X293=5075 


5002 


Saturn, 


387+ 


32X293=9763 


9538 


Uranus, 


387+ 


64X293=19139 


19182 


Neptune, 


387+ 


128X293=37891 


30036 



Such contrivances are of no value, and if made exact 
could be of no use in attaining any philosophical explana- 
tion or determined necessity for such an order, and the 
only purpose subserved in here referring to them is, to 
evince how notable has been the fact of this gradation in 



THE LAWS OF WORLD-SYSTEMS. 329 

the planetary distances. The widest departure from the 
duplicate ratio is in the last space between Uranus and 
Neptune, which is too small for the due proportion by 
nearly 8,000 parts, or if put into miles according to the 
fact, the deficiency is more than 800,000,000 of miles. 
This large deficiency in miles is, however, from the great 
distance of Neptune, only a deficiency of between ^ and 
= of the proper ratio. The fact of the nearly duplicate 
ratios in the planetary distances, manifestly indicates some 
generally determining principle, but this principle inter- 
rupted in its control by some interfering circumstances. 

The general princi|)le is in the gravity and revolution 
of the primal sphere of the system. The extreme planets, 
or those first thrown oflT, must have been the rarest, and 
their condensation must have left the largest spaces, the 
inferior planets growing more dense and leaving smaller 
spaces ; and the gaining of the excess of revolution, after 
ejecting one planet so as to throw oflT the next, must have 
been as the diminishing circumference of the sphere, giving 
the shorter spacial interval to the smaller circumference. 
If Neptune be an outside planet, there must have been an 
outside friction that would prematurely separate it, and 
might thus account for its diminished interplanetary space. 

The ratio in the times of revolution to the distance 
from the centre, is invariable in all the revolving bodies 
of the system. The so-called " harmonic law " prevails in 
all the planets and their satellites. The cubes of the dis- 
tances are as the squares of the times of revolution. All 
the planets were therefore thrown off from the surface 
of a sphere, and not from the end of a line or the periphery 
of a circle. And since both the tangential impulse and 



330 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

the gravitating force remain constant after tlie ejection 
of the planet, undisturbed by any interfering influences as 
in the case of planetary densities and planetary distances, 
so the facts have here the exactness and universality of an 
unhindered determining principle, and therefore an inva- 
riable and unbroken law. That the satellites revolve 
about their primaries in the same ratio of the cube of the 
distance and the square of the periodic time as a matter of 
fact, has been determined in this, that the satellites were 
ejected from their rotating primaries in their ensphered 
state, and thus necessitating the cubes of the distances, 
and not the mere sum of the units, as would have been 
necessary in the ejection from the end of a line, or the 
square of the distances if the ejection had been from the 
circumference of a circle. The same facts in the solar, 
terrene, jovian, saturnian and uranian systems, have their 
necessary law in the third principle of planetary revolution. 
The satellites revolve but do not rotate. An excess of 
rotation over adhesion or gravity, may very well occur to 
so great a degree in the original revolving mass as to give 
to some of the planets a force of ejection that shall 
secure their rotation not only, but , so as also to throw off 
one or more satellites ; but it can hardly be anticipated 
that the satellites shall have such a force of ejection as to 
secure their rotation, and much less that a rotation shall 
be sufficiently rapid to throw off sub-satellites. And the 
facts are, that not only is no satellite found with a sub- 
satellite, but no satelhte is found to rotate on its own 
axis in its revolution about its primary. The moon, it is 
well known, keeps the same face to the earth through 
all revolutions, with the exception of certain slight libra- 



THE LAWS OF WOKLD-SYSTEMS. 331 

tions clearly conditioned by two or three separate consid- 
erations. As the principle determines, the matter of the 
moon was just thrown beyond and separate from the 
matter of the planet, and while the revolution and rotation 
of the planet were conditioned by the tangential force of 
revolution in the great spherical mass, the revolution of 
the moon around the earth was conditioned by the force 
which was in the planets' rotation, and which was only 
sufficient to overcome the cohesion, but not to secure rota- 
tion. The moon, thus barely separated, keeps on its rate 
of revolution as if it had remained still in the circumference 
of the earth's mass of matter, as it was just preceding its 
first disruption, and thus perpetually revolves about the 
earth at that constant rate, while the matter of the earth 
rolls and condenses itself to a ball of continually more 
rapid rotations beneath it. The moon, thus, having no 
rotation, and therefore no balancing upon its own axis, 
cannot revolve as the earth in its rotations does, with an 
axis always parallel to its former positions in the orbit, 
but with its centre bound to the earth's centre as if it were 
still held by the radius of its old first revolution. It thus 
keeps constantly the same hemisphere to the earth, and as 
if its old radius was a cord attached at opposite ends to the 
centres of the two bodies, the moon's one face thereby 
necessarily turns to every portion of the earth's surface 
with each revolution. 

The same conformity with the principle is found in the 
facts of the very slight eccentricity of the moon's orbit, 
and the absence of all flattening at the poles. If the moon 
had been ejected from its primary with sufficient force to 
rotate, it must have been considerably elliptical in its 



332 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

orbit ; and if it had rotated on its axis, it must have been 
oblate proportioned to the rapidity of rotation. The facts 
all correspond to the determinations of the rational prin- 
ciple. 

And not only with the moon, but the same accordance 
of principle and law is found also with the satellites of all 
the planets^ so far as any discoveries of facts have been 
made. Sir "William Herschel has found satisfactory indica- 
tions, in his most accurate observations, that the moons 
of Jupiter have only the same enlightened hemispheres to 
the planet ; and the largest satellite of Saturn is also found 
to have a variation of apparent brightness in different 
parts of its orbit, and that the same brightness always 
corresponds to the same position on the surface of Saturn 
in the revolutions of the satellite about it. This general 
law of the satellites, that they constantly turn one face to 
their primary, has been sometimes accounted for by sup- 
posing that one hemisphere of the satellite is protruded 
towards its planet, and thus held in place by an excess of 
gravity in the protruding part ; but no fact of such pro- 
tuberance appears, and the true principle determines the 
facts as they are given, without any such gratuitous 
hypothesis. 

So, moreover, in the planes of the orbits^ and the 
direction of revolution^ we have the same remarkable 
accordance of fact and determining principle. The great 
revolving sphere of which the system is to be constituted, 
must . throw off its planets and satelhtes successively, and 
the great central force will keep this wheeling sphere 
revolving in one general direction through all the process. 
The outermost or earliest planet will be thrown off in the 



THE LAWS OF WOKLD-SYSTEMS. 333 

same general direction as the innermost and last formed, 
and thus the courses in their orbits will be direct, and not 
retrograde. At the same time the modifications of the 
central current AviU very probably secure some oscillation 
of the wheeling sphere on its own centre, and thus the 
equatorial plane must have some changes of direction. 
This would necessitate corresponding varieties in the 
planes of the planetary orbits, and while all cannot be 
expected to be formed in the same plane, the general imi- 
formity of the revolving-force will not admit of very wide 
varieties. 

The facts are, that all the planets move in one direction 
in their orbits, or from west to east as viewed relatively to 
the terrestrial axis, and all the planes of the planetary 
orbits are inclined somewhat to each other, but still within 
very limited degrees, l^o two are parallel, nor exactly in 
the same plane, and the widest extremes, aside from the 
planetoids, do not vary but about 7 degrees. Taking the 
sun's equator as the present fixed plane, we shaU find a 
pretty uniform oscillation from planet to planet, till we get 
to Mercury, and which suddenly drops into very near con- 
formity with the plane of the sun's revolution. The oscil- 
lations are little removed from one degree between 
the successive planets till we come to the earth, which 
between Mars and Venus oscillates from two to three 
desrrees. Thus — 



"O' 



Neptune, 5° 43' 00" 

Uranus, 6° 43' 32" 

Saturn, 5° 00' 25" 

Jupiter, 6° 11' 09" 

Mars, 5° 38' 54" 



334: THE NECESSABY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

Earth, V° 80' 00" 

Venus, 4° 06' 32" 

Mercury, 0° 29' 55" 

Sun, 0° 00' 00" 

But when we take the planes of the orbits of the satel- 
lites, we have, as we might anticipate, much wider 
extremes ; and both in the extremes of orbital planes, and 
more especially of direction of revolution, we have really 
an astonishing conformity of fact and principle. The great 
wheeling sphere of matter must revolve on pretty uniform- 
ly, and the slight oscillations can occasion but little in- 
clinations of the planes of the planetary orbits, and no 
retrogradations apparent in the course of the planetary 
revolutions. But when the planet is ejected, many oppor- 
tunities for modifying causes occur. The rotation of the 
planetary matter must conform in its axis, to the compo- 
sition of the ejecting force which throws the matter for- 
ward and the attracting force of gravity bringing the 
matter backward, and thus wrapping the upper portion 
over the lower ; and according to the equal density of the 
matter, and the directness of the ejecting force, must be 
the regularity of the axis of rotation. Exact equality of 
density, and precise |)rojection of revolving force, would 
secure the rotary axis of the planet directly parallel to the 
axis of the principal sphere, but any inequality of density 
in the matter to be thrown off at the circumference must 
give to the projecting force a modified direction, and turn 
the impulse, and thus the direction of the ejected matter, 
more from one side of the equatorial plane than from the 
other. If the denser matter be on one side of the equato- 
rial plane, the tendency will be to throw the matter 



THE LAWS OF WOELD-SYSTEMS. 335 

towards the other side, and the axis of rotation must be 
directed accordingly ; and thus it may be, that while the 
general tendency is toward an axis across and perpendicu- 
lar to the plane of the planetary orbit, specific cases may 
give the axis of rotation nearly in the plane of the orbit. 
A very dense lump on one side of the ejected mass might 
turn the axis of rotation to be almost like the rifle ball, or 
near 90° from its regular direction perpendicular to the 
plane of the orbit. The rotation must, therefore, be in the 
direction of the projecting force, and necessarily direct and 
not retrograde, and yet the axis of rotation in one planet 
may very well so be turned in inclination towards that of 
another planet, that the satellites of one may appear to have 
a retrograde movement when viewed from the other. And 
so the facts really are found to be in our own solar system. 
Mercury is too near the sun, and too perpetually within 
its strong light, to determine its rotation by any observa- 
tion. Venus can be known to rotate from the different 
appearances of the cusps or horns while passing through its 
illuminated changes, but the direction of its axis has not 
yet been, and perhaps may never be, determined. So far 
as we have the determination of the direction of the planet- 
ary axes, either by direct calculation, or by deduction from 
the general plane of the orbits of their satellites, they may 
be given as follows, in the degrees of their inclination to 
their own orbits respectively : — 

The Earth, 66° 32' 

Mars, 61° 18' 

Jupiter, 86° 54' 

Saturn, 115° 41' 

Uranus, . ...... . 168° 1.2' 



836" THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

Leaving Mars, wMcli has no satellite, and estimating 
the above in reference to the ecliptic or the earth's orbit, 
and also in reference to the earth's axis, we shall have the 
following : — 





Inclination of axes to 
the ecliptic. 


Inclination of axes to 
the earth's axis. 


The Earth, 


66° 32' 


00° 00' 


Jupiter, 


88° 13' 


21° 41' 


Saturn, 


118° 11' 


51° 39' 


Franus, 


168° 58' 


102° 26' 



If we consider the orbits of the satellites as perpendicu- 
lar to the axes of their primaries, which must doubtless be 
very near the fact, that of the moon inclining a little more 
than 1° 30' to the axis of the earth, we should have the 
following appearances of the satellites of the different 
planets from the earth, as determined by the principle of 
the necessary revolutions and rotations of the respective 
planets. All these planets must move in their orbits in the 
same general direction as the earth, for they are succes- 
sively thrown off from the same spherical mass ; and this 
must also secure that, in reference to their own orbital 
movements, their rotary movements must also be in the 
same way direct, and not retrograde, for their rotary move- 
ment must be the result of the projectile force which sepa- 
rates them from the wheeling sphere, and though unequal 
densities in the matter may greatly modify the inclinations 
of the axes, yet must the rotations on the axes in all cases 
be before and not against the projectile force. In the case 
of the earth, we find the moon moving from west to east in 
her revolution about the earth, and thus determining that 
the projectile force of the wheeling sphere was in that 



THE LAWS OF WORLD-SYSTEMS. 337 

general direction, but with such an inequality in the densi- 
ty of the matter as to turn the axis 66° 32' out of its regu- 
lar perpendicular position to the earth's orbit. With this 
direction of the earth's axis for our north point, and the 
rotation of the earth, and thus the revolution of the moon 
from west to east, and making the earth our stand-point, 
we must find Jupiter's moons also moving from west to 
east, and in orbits inclined to the earth's axis of generally 
68° 19', thus giving only a profile view, somewhat narrow, 
viz., 21° 41', to the Jovian system, from our earth. The 
Saturnian system must come much more broadly in profile, 
for its inclination of the orbits of its moons generally must 
be 38° 21', giving a face of 51° 39' to the view from the 
earth, and the moons stiU moving from a western to an 
eastern direction, for their orbits are still above or west of 
the north polar point of the earth's axis. 

But when we come to the TJranian system, we have 
the orbits of its moons inclined 12° 26' to the earth's 
axis from the under or eastern side, so that the face has 
really turned itself by the full plane, and has cast itself a 
little in profile on the other side, viz. 77° 34'. The moons 
of Uranus, as seen from the earth, though really moving 
in the general direction of the planet itself in its orbit, 
and thus truly direct and not retrograde, must yet appear 
from the earth to be moving from an easterly to a westerly 
direction. The axis of Uranus is 11° 48' turned across 
the plane of its orbit, and must therefore rotate in the 
general direction of the projectile force from its orbit, but 
because the axis of the earth is more than 90 degrees 
turned from the axis of Uranus, the moons of Uranus must 

from the earth appear to move in a westerly direction. 

22 



338 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

That the moons of Uranus are retrograde has been a sur- 
prising anomaly from its first discovery, but that this ex- 
ceptional fact is found to leap within the necessary deter- 
minations of the eternal principle, and is found anomalous 
only in appearance, the priaciple itself expounding why it 
must so appear, is a most conclusive example of that 
accordance of fact and principle, which is alone true 
science. 

The marked peculiarities of the Planetoids have been 
matters of great interest and wonder from the earliest 
discovery of any of their number. The wide breach, in 
the pretty nearly duplicate ratio of increase in the inter- 
planetary spaces from the centre outwards, which occurs 
between Mars and Jupiter, had been very extensively 
considered by astronomers as the place of a lost, or of as 
yet an undiscovered planet, and at the close of the last 
century much interest had been excited to extend a care- 
fiil observation over all this region, with the ho|)e of find- 
ing such missing planet. On the 1st of January, 1801, the 
Italian Astronomer Piazzi, discovered a star that seemed 
by the next evening to have changed its place, and by re- 
peated observations during the month, he had determined 
its truly, planetary character, and though lost in the sun's 
light, it had again been found after emerging on the other 
side of its orbit, and was determined in its elements and 
called Ceres. It held almost exactly the right position for 
dividing properly the space between Mars and Jupiter, 
but was exceeduigly minute as a planet, its diameter being 
only about 160 miles. In March of the following year, 
Dr. Olbers discovered Pallas, having nearly the same mean 
distance as Ceres, but with an orbit much further inclined 



THE LAWS OF WORLD-SYSTEMS. 339 

from the ecliptic. In September, 1804, Juno was discov- 
ered, and in March, 1807, the discovery of Vesta followed, 
after which no more planetoids were found until 1845, 
when M. Hencke discovered Hebe, and since that time the 
search has been so diligently and successfully pursued, 
that in 1856, forty planetoids had been found and their 
elements calculated. 

These small bodies all revolve within a limited space 
between Mars and Jupiter, and may very well be deemed 
as filling the appropriate place of one planet. Mars is 
about 145,000,000 of miles and Jupiter about 494,000,000 
of miles from the sun, and these planetoids range between 
209,000,000 miles and 300,000,000 miles in mean distances 
from the sun, thus occupying about 90,000,000 of the 349,- 
000,000 miles of this interplanetary space, and in the pro- 
per ratio nearer to Mars to conform to the general ratio 
of the other interplanetary distances. The largest of these 
bodies cannot be more than 500 miles in diameter, and 
the smallest may not be 50 miles, so that the aggregate 
of all the asteroids yet discovered, would make but a small 
planetary body if united. While thus occupying the space 
due to one planet, and together conforming to the general 
conditions of the planetary bodies, yet are there some 
pretty wide differences among themselves, and some mark- 
ed peculiarities from other planets. 

Their orbits, though elliptical, yet widely differ in 
amount of eccentricity from each other, and the least 
eccentric is still more elliptical than any of the planets, 
except Mercury and Mars, while the most elliptical about 
doubles the eccentricity of Mercury. Their inclination to 
the eclliptic, in their orbits, is also of a much wider range 



340 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

than in the case of the planets. They all lie on one side 
of the earth's orbit towards the sun, but there are 23 be- 
tween the ecliptic and the plane of the sun's equator, and 
17 beyond the plane of the sun's equator. The nearest to 
the ecliptic is Massaha, 0° 50' 16", and the furthest inclined 
from the ecliptic is PaUas, 34° Si' 20". Their longitudes 
of ascending nodes, or the liues in which their orbital 
planes cut the plane of the ecliptic, are widely extended ; 
Fides being about 8° and Atalanta about 359°. Their 
difference in longitude of perihehon puts also their direc- 
tions of their major axes all around the sun, the least being 
that of Loetitia about 1°, and the largest being that of 
Polymnia about 341°. Their movements in their orbits 
conform to the planetary principle that the cube of the 
mean distance is as the square of the periodic time, and 
thus the most distant has the least velocity in its orbit. 
Flora is the least distant from the sun, whose semi-axis of 
orbit is to that of the earth as 2,2017, and its daily motion 
1086", and its sidereal period 1193 days; while Euphrosyne 
has a comparative semi-axis of orbit with the earth of 
3,156, and a daily movement of 633", and a sidereal period 
of 2048 days. Their movements are all direct in their 
orbits, and all their general conformities with the planets 
are determined in the same principle as that which gives 
to them their universal law. But theu' peculiarities, so 
widely distinguishiug them from all the regular planets, 
have hitherto been brought under no determining prin- 
ciple, and subjected to no known laws. Their small 
masses, their widely extended degrees of inclination, lon- 
gitudes of ascending node, and longitudes of perihelion. 



THE LAWS OF WOELD-SYSTEMS. 341 

with their great differences of eccentricity, are considered 
as yet wholly anomalous. 

But the immediate circumstances in the formation of 
the planetoids, when fully considered, will fairly bring all 
their peculiarities under the determination of the one 
great principle that has ruled in all the planetary consti- 
tutions. When the great planet Jupiter, whose mass is 
more than 338 times that of the earth, had been just 
thrown off, its attraction upon the wheeling sj^here be- 
neath, and from which it had just parted, necessarily put 
that sphere in a peculiar position for the formation of its 
next equatorial accumulations. Without here considering 
how the action of Saturn would necessarily, if in conjunc- 
tion with that of Uranus, tend to the ejection of so large 
a mass as Jupiter, the insight into the action of such a 
mass as Jupiter gives just the conditions necessary for 
forming the planetoids. As the primal sphere was revolv- 
ing under so large an attracting body as Jupiter, which 
yet might not have condensed much within the orbit of its 
outermost satellite, this sphere must have had its equa- 
torial accumulations thereby hastened, and the general 
equatorial protuberance induced by the revolution and 
hastened by Jupiter's attraction must also by this attrac- 
tion have been considerably disturbed, and drawn from an 
equable equatorial diffusion over the surface to a rising tide 
directly under this large planet. The same attraction that 
made the tide on the side next to Jupiter must also have 
lightened the antagonism at the centre of the sphere, and 
thus just balanced the pressure upon the opposite hemi- 
sphere, and therefore raised simultaneously an equal tide 
upon the side of the sphere opposite to Jupiter. 



342 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE TTNIYEESE. 

In such a state, the rotating sphere could not hold on 
and retain its equatorial accumulations, until the tangential 
force should bring all into the equatorial ring and expel all 
in a mass, but as the accumulation had become considera- 
ble in the equatorial region, and Jupiter's attraction had 
brought up a tide beneath, so the tangential force must first 
have caught the crest of that tidal wave and expelled it from 
the main sphere, and Euphrosyne the outermost planetoid 
was thus driven upon its separate revolution. The same 
attraction above, and the same tidal wave and revolution 
beneath, anon threw off Hygeia, and then Themis, and 
Leucothea, and so onward in successive instalments till 
we reach Flora, the last and least distant from the sun of 
any that has been yet found, and the balancing rehef was 
gained as if all had been expelled in one planet, until the 
ordinary accumulation again returned with no progressing 
attraction for a flowing tidal wave, and Mars was made a 
regular though smaller planet. The accumulation and 
tide must have made the first planetoid exclusion untimely 
early, and the last untimely late, and hence the width of 
the planetoid orbital region, and hence also the dispropor- 
tioned smalLness of Mars. 

As Jupiter passed on his orbit, and the primal sphere 
rotated beneath, the crest of the tide must have been per- 
petually varying through all the equatorial circle, and 
hence the planetoids must have gone off at all their differ- 
ent degrees of perihehon longitude and ascending nodal 
line, and as there must have been unequal attractions at 
different times on opposite sides of the equatorial circle, 
so there must have been all the different degrees of inclina- 
tion that the planetoidal orbits possessed, and which may 



THE LAWS OF WOKLD-SYSTEMS. 343 

perpetually be modified by later interferences. With such 
a neighboring planet as Jupiter, its next inferior body 
could not have been thrown off a mature planet, but must 
have been a planetoid followed by others in succession till 
the accumulations and expulsions were balanced. And on 
the other hand, nothing but such preponderance of plane- 
tary attraction and tidal elevation progressing from place 
to place over the equatorial circle, could have combined 
so many pecuHarities of planetoid formation and revolution 
as the facts disclose. The j)lanetoids must have been be- 
tween Mars and Jupiter ; they could not have been pro- 
duced between any other two of our planets. 

Of precisely an opposite character to the planetoids are 
the rings of Saturn. Many of the planets have satellites, 
but Saturn only is surrounded nearly in its equatorial plane 
by a system of concentric thin and broad rings. So suigu- 
lar a fact has rendered the phenomenon a matter of the 
highest interest, but no investigation has as yet brought 
the fact under the determination of any principle, nor sub- 
jected it to any necessary law. Saturn has eight satellites, 
all but the exterior one in the same general plane of the 
ring which is interior to them all. The exterior satellite is 
inclined to this plane 12"^ 14', and is more than 64 semi- 
diameters of Saturn distant from it, while the interior satel- 
lite is but a httle more than 3 semi-diameters, or about 
144,000 miles, distant from the centre of Saturn. The ring 
is manifestly, at least in some periods of its observation, di- 
vided into two, one within the other, with a comparatively 
narrow space between them. The exterior ring is the nar- 
rowest, and is 10,573 miles broad, the interior ring being 
17,176 miles in breadth, and the interval between the rin^s 



344 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

being 1,791 miles in breadth, thus giving to the whole annu- 
lar space a breadth of 29,540 miles. The interval between 
the lower edge of the ring and the equatorial surface of Sat- 
urn is 19,089 miles, or about one-half the semi-diameter of 
Saturn. There has recently been discovered a third trans- 
parent ring, stretching down from the inner portion of the 
second ring Hke a thin vail toward the surface of the 
planet. The thickness of the ring is so small that when its 
edge is alone presented to the best glasses it is invisible, or 
barely perceptible, and cannot be more than 250 miles. It 
is shghtly eccentric, and thus balancing itself upon a mova- 
ble point about the centre of Saturn, and is deemed to be 
in a fluid state. 

If now, when the revolutions of Saturn had brought the 
equatorial accumulation to a pretty equable and narrow 
distribution about the mid-line of the planet, and this raised 
equatorial ring was passing round in regular rotation with 
the planet, and the tangential force hardly availing to 
throw it off as it had done its last satellite, the eight moons 
of Saturn should be so distributed in their revolutions as 
to hft, in their attractions, pretty equably on all sides of 
the planet around its equator, it must follow that the body 
of the planet would separate itself from this equatorial 
accumulation, and the separated part would at once be a 
■fluid ring henceforth perpetuaUy to revolve at its own 
steady velocity, and in its own place, about the body of 
the planet as that should condense and rotate beneath it. 
The rotating planet, and the revolving ring, together with 
the revolving moons, would all be carried about the sun, 
by the tangential force that sent the planet out in its orbit. 

This ring, thus separated and revolving, must throw its 



THE LAW OF COMETS. 345 

fluid matter upward and spread itself out into a thin plane, 
and any subsequent unequal attractions must make partial 
divisions, and continued condensations would secure com- 
plete separations all round within the substance of the 
ring, and would thus necessarily work it into the precise 
position presented by its present phenomena. Nothing 
hinders that this ring may perpetuate itself unbroken 
transversely, so long as its fluid state permits it to yield 
and equihbrate itself to any disturbing one-sided attrac- 
tions, and its rotating centre about the planet's centre to 
balance all disturbing revolutions. 

Nothing could give such a revolving ring, but such a 
favorable distribution of many attracting bodies at the 
right state of the equatorial accumulation ; and if such an 
arrangement of circumstances did occur, then Saturn's ring 
was a necessary consequence. ISTo other planet has the 
requisite satellites, and no other occasion could be given 
in our system for a revolving ring, but in some such distri- 
bution of planets about the primal sphere, and that indeed 
may have made the ring between the Earth and Mars that 
reflects the mysterious zodiacal light upon us. 

11. The Law of Comets. — ^Remnants of the chemically 
chaotic matter, which have not been taken up and con- 
densed in the world-systems, must come together in the 
diremptive currents that yet move through the primitive 
ether, and thus form larger or smaller collections of mat- 
ter moving amid the intervening spaces of the systems. 
They may also be constantly accumulating in the irradia- 
tions and interworkings of the primitive forces, and thus at 
no time will the interstellary spaces be free from many 
light and floating bodies, that condense about their own 



346 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE TJNIYEESE. 

centres with sufficient consistency to maintain their integri- 
ty of connection, though rapidly moving through the ethe- 
real fluid. These bodies are comets, and subject to the 
universal forces that constitute and move them, but as 
independent of the systems they manifest themselves to us 
by no phenomena, and give no facts to be referred to the 
control of any particular laws. They may come within a 
system, pass through and beyond it, and have no more any 
communication with it, or be caught and retained by it, 
and afterwards make up a component part of it, and have 
their facts bound uj) in laws that are necessitated by the 
principles inherent in it. Under this idea of cometary 
origin, Ave contemplate the facts which the comets connect- 
ed or communicating with our system give to our ob- 
servation. 

Comets manifest themselves to be exceedingly tenuous 
in the matter of their composition, inasmuch as they are 
completely diaphanous, and the stars before which they 
pass appear through their most central portions with their 
light not perceptibly diminished. But this extreme rarity 
compared with the bodies of the planets is still great densi- 
ty compared with the primitive ethereal fluid. They pass, 
sometimes with the most surprising velocity, through this 
ethereal medium with but slight obstruction from it. The 
ethereal resistance, wholly inappreciable by any reference 
to the movements of the planets, is yet quite determinate 
in the movements of the comets. Encke's comet has lost 
distinctively in each of the last ten observed revolutions, 
what in the aggregate amounts to about one entire day. 
There has also been determined in the revolutions of 
Biela's comet a similar retardation. So also, when the tail 



THE LAW OF COMETS. 34:7 

of a comet appears curved, the convex portion is found to 
be in the direction from which the comet has been moving, 
therein manifestuig that the most subtle percej)tible vapor 
of a comet is still impeded by the ether through which it 
passes. Such thin and light bodies cannot have sufficient 
gravity to induce a radiation of any latent heat-force at the 
centre and make them to be self-luminous, and hence we 
find they do not, hke the stars, keep the same brightness, 
though diminishing in apparent volume by distance, but 
often fade out and disappear even where the body at the 
last still presents a considerable disk, therein manifesting 
that they have shone only in reflected light. 

The principle of cometary origin admits that they may 
be deflected from their former course by the interfering 
attractions of a system, and made to take a perihelion pas- 
sage about the central body, and thence may pass on ia a 
curve that returns again completely within itself, and be- 
come an elliptical orbit, or it may pass on and pass out of 
the system in either a parabolic or hyperbolic curve, and 
never again return to the system through which it has 
passed. A comet, also, that has been caught and retained 
in a complete elliptical orbit, may subsequently be sub- 
jected to interfering attractions that shall greatly change 
its orbit, or even make it to take a curve that shall com- 
pletely carry it again out of the system. The retained 
comets will have more varied inclinations and eccentrici- 
ties than the planets, for they come in under impulses of 
all degrees and directions, while the planets are ejected 
from the one source of the same rotating sphere. Some 
vnR pass about the sun in one direction, and others in an 
opposite direction, and thus there will be comets of direct 



348 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

and others of retrograde movement, tlie chances for each 
bemg equal. 

The facts correspond to what might thus be anticipa- 
ted. Faye's comet, discovered in ISTovember, 1843, was 
determined to a period of 1= years in an elliptical orbit of 
but a little extent beyond Jupiter. The wonder was, why 
a comet so often occurring should not have been before 
observed ? The answer which has satisfied, was derived 
from the fact, that in the point of its aphelion it had then 
approached very near to Jupiter in that part of his orbit, 
and that thus it had been deflected from its course in a 
parabolic curve, or a much larger ellipse, and was thereby 
then brought into an orbit within the range of terrestrial 
observation. 

A more remarkable case to the same point, is the 
comet discovered by Messier in 1770. This comet made 
two revolutions round the sun, and has since been lost 
to further observation. Very careful calculations have 
been made by Lexell, La Place, and especially by La Yer- 
rier, and with somewhat different conclusions, but all con- 
curring in this, that the disturbing influence of Jupiter in 
its last aphelion had thrown it quite out of its former 
orbit, and that it might have gone out whoUy from the 
system, or into another elliptical orbit not yet recognized, 
or might even have passed within the orbits of the moons 
of Jupiter, and been permanently lodged in that planet. 
The general fact seems established, that comets have been 
both caught in, and expelled from the system. 

Biela's comet has its orbit from a little within the 
earth's orbit to a little beyond Jupiter's orbit, and thus 
of course moves almost entirely between the earth and 



TIIE LAW OF COMETS. 349 

Jupiter, passing the orbits of Mars and the planetoids. 
It is but little inclined to the plane of the general system, 
of comparative slight eccentricity, and in a period of less 
than 7 years revolution. These planets may act upon it 
with a divellent force in opposite directions, but their joint 
action in conjunction must be too slight, from the neces- 
sary distance in such a case, to be of any account. The 
dense bodies of Mars and the planetoids may also inter- 
fere occasionally with great effect. 

The very singular fact that this comet separated itself 
into two distinct comets in its appearance in 1846, and 
that so long as they remained visible for about 4 months, 
they continued separate at rather diverging directions, 
and especially that on their return in 1852, they had in- 
creased their direct distance apart to more than one and a 
half million of miles, is a clear evidence of the slight con- 
sistency in the bodies of the comets and the readiness 
with which interfering influences may greatly modify their 
entire constitutions. Whether conflicting attractions or 
disparting resistances induced this disruption, the fact 
itself determines that comets may readily be multiplied or 
changed. 

Up to 1854, of more than 200 comets that had appear- 
ed and been determined in their elements, we have the 
following distinctions with their peculiarities : 

(1.) Comets with elliptical orbits. There are 13 of this 
class whose mean distances are within the orbit of Saturn. 
Taking the earth's mean distance as the standard, the least 
distant of these is 2,2148, and the most distant is G,3206. 
The least eccentric of them is 0,6173, and the most eccen- 
tric is 0,8490. The orbit least uiclined to the ecliptic is 



350 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIYEESE. 

1° 34' 28", and that most inclined is 30° 51' 51." They 
all move direct in their orbits, or in concurrence with the 
planets. There are again 6 of these whose mean distance 
is mthin and pretty near to the orbit of Uranus. The 
least distant of these compared with the earth from the 
sun, is 14,5306, and the most distant is 17,9875. The 
least eccentric is 0,9248, and the most eccentric is 0,9726. 
The least inclination to the ecliptic is 17° 45' 5", and the 
most is 84° 57' 13". One of these, HaUey's comet, is 
retrograde, and the others are direct. And then, further, 
there are 21 of the comets with elliptical orbits whose 
mean distances exceed the furthest known limits of our 
system. Compared with the earth's solar distance, the 
least is 33,0310, and the furthest is 2138,0000. The least 
eccentric is 0,96990, and the most eccentric is 0,99998. 
The least inclined to the ecliptic is 21° 16' 5", and the most 
inclined is 83° 47^ 46". Ten are direct and eleven retro- 
grade. There were thus determined 40 of the elliptical 
comets. 

(2.) Comets with hyperboHc courses. There have been 
determined in their courses 7 hyperbolic comets. The 
perihelion distance of the least, compared ^vith that of the 
earth, was 0,6184, and the furthest was 4,0635. The least 
inclined to the echptic was 11° 15' 19", and the most in- 
clined was 83° 20' 26". One was retrograde and six 
direct. 

(3.) Comets with parabohc courses. There have been 
determined 160 parabolic comets. The least in perihelion 
distance must have nearly grazed the surface of the sun, 
and the furthest was in perihelion distance, compared 
with the earth, 2,1985. The least inclmed was 1° 55' 0", 



THE LAW OF COMETS. 351 

and the most inclined to the ecliptic was 89° 22' 10" 
Of these 70 were direct, 86 retrograde, and 4 not de- 
termined. 

Some of these statistics distinguishing the comets from 
the planets are, their wide differences of inclination from a 
little more than 1° to a little less than 90°, while the incli- 
nation of the planets only reaches to about '7° and the 
planetoids to about 35°; and also their degrees of eccen- 
tricity in . their orbits, which compared with the earth is 
from 0,6173 to 0,99998, while the most eccentric of the 
planets is Mercury, 0,38709, and of the planetoids is Po- 
lymnia, 0,337. Their mean distances from the sun are 
fi'om a little more than twice that of the earth to 2138 
times the earth's distance. Such wide discrepancies deter- 
mine that the planets and elliptical comets could not have 
been thrown off fi'om the same rotating sphere, and that 
the comets could not themselves have been formed from 
any one systematic revolution, but must have come withm 
the system under separate impulses. This is still more 
manifest in the wide differences of longitude of ascending 
node in the comets, reaching from 1° 12' 24" to 356° 17' 
38". The most elliptical planetary orbit is still near to a 
circle, but the most elliptical cometary orbit has the two 
sides and the major axis almost parallel to each other. 
Such wide extremes are plainly incidental to their separate 
and independent introduction into the system. 

But while these general facts come thus under the 
general law for cometary connection with the planetary 
system, there are two particulars that require and will 
repay a distinct and close examination. We will first look 
at the facts of the inclination of cometary elliptical orbits 



352 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE UNB^EESE. 

to the ecliptic; and second^ to the facts connected with 
their direct and retrograde revokitions. 

"We have seen that of 40 elliptical orbits of the comets, 
13 are within the orbit of Saturn, taking the mean distance, 
and their extremes of inclination to the ecliptic are from 
1° 34' 28" to 30° 57' 51"; and that there are 6 within the 
orbit of Uranus and near to it, whose extremes of iuclinar 
tion to the ecliptic are 17° 45' 5" up to 84° 57' 13"; and 
there are 21 beyond the outermost known planetary orbit, 
ranging in extremes of ecliptic inclination from 21° 16' 5" 
to 83° 47' 46". The peculiarity observable is m the first 
class of orbits within Saturn, where their extremes of incli- 
nation are quite Hmited, the furthest being still within the 
plane of the furthest inclined planetoid, and all the rest 
withicL 18° of inclination. In the other two classes the 
extreme inclination reaches almost to a direct perpendicu- 
lar to the echptic. Moreover, in the first class the orbits 
are much less eccentric and their elements strongly alhed 
to those of the planets, so that they have been distinguished 
as having a planetary character and especially as strongly 
analogous to the orbits of the planetoids. The extreme 
rarity of all comets will, however, universally distinguish 
them from all planetary bodies that have been thrown off 
from their one primal rotating sphere. The nearest as well 
as the most remote in theii' superior apsides, all have come 
within the system from some independent source without. 
But why the nearest class so conformed in inclination to 
the planetary system, and the others reach almost at right- 
angles to it ? 

Entering the system independently, they should have 
had each an equal ratio of extreme inclination on their first 



THE LAW OF COMETS. 363 

introduction, and hence we must look for something within 
the system that has induced this peculiarity since their 
entrance. 'Now a careful insight into their position and 
revolution in reference to the planets will disclose this 
necessary law of their limited inclination to the ecliptic. 
Suppose one of these comets on its solitary way to have 
come within the gravitating force of our system, and to be 
so drawn to it that it passes in and around the sun, and 
onward in its elliptical path to a complete orbit, and that 
the plane of this orbit is directly perpendicular to the com- 
mon plane of the planetary orbits. In its revolution it 
does not go off further from the sun than Saturn, and 
though at right-angles to Saturn's course it will not at the 
furthest remove have gone beyond all Saturn's appreciable 
influence, and through all its revolution it will be affected 
by all the planets within the orbit of Saturn. These 
planetary attractions will not always, nor even often, be all 
uniformly arranged so as to balance their action upon the 
comet, but must almost perpetually act in excess upon one 
side of the comet, and which must turn it down and incline 
its orbit less than at right angles to the planetary plane. 
Such inclination within 90° once secured, the conspiring 
attractions of the planets in their perpetually concurring 
occasions must bring the inclination nearer and nearer into 
conformity with the planets, until the whole cometary 
orbit shall find its place of general equilibration with the at- 
tractions to which from perihelion to aphelion it is subject, 
and must afterwards oscillate about this as alternate excesses 
and deficiencies of gravitation on each side shall induce. 
Any comet, commencing to revolve in an orbit less than a 

right-angle to the common planetary plane, must the more 
23 



354 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVEKSE. 

certainly be at length brought to its equilibrating plane of 
inclination, and as these attractions are from the bodies of 
the system, so they must bring the cometary orbit into a 
general conformity with the planetary orbits. 

On the other hand, when the length of the orbit puts 
the comet through the superior half of its orbital move- 
ment beyond the reach of any appreciable planetary attrac- 
tions, the general plane cannot be modified thereby, and it 
must perpetually revolve at the same general inehnation of 
the orbit as was first originated. The smaller orbits also 
must have had a less excess of projectile over the attrac- 
tive force to carry them round the sun, and thus they 
must be less eccentric and more circular. 

But a still more surprising conformity appears in the 
facts ol direct and retrograde movement by the comets, to 
which we will next attend. All the comets whose mean 
distances are within Saturn are direct in their movements ; 
all but one are direct also whose mean distances are nearly 
equal to that of Uranus; and of the 21 comets determined, 
whose mean distances are beyond the outskirts of the sys- 
tem, 10 are direct and 11 are retrograde. Why this grow- 
ing tendency to retrogradation in the greater distance? 

If we suppose a comet whose distance and plane of 
inclination brmgs it perpetually within the attraction of the 
planetary bodies, it will be found a natural and necessary 
result, that such comet shall ultimately take on a direct 
movement in its orbit. With such an inclination, no mat- 
ter what its original longitude of ascending node, nor what 
its longitude of perihelion, the conspiring movements of 
the planets in their orbits and of the comet in its orbit will 
necessitate, that a comet of retrograde movement shall at 



THE LAW OF COMETS. 355 

length take on a direct movement. The planets all move 
in one direction ; as estimated from onr terrestrial stand- 
point, this direction is from a westerly to an easterly bear- 
ing. Suppose the comet, no matter what its longitude of 
perihelion, nor what its orbital plane of inclination if 
brought to He beyond the sun's semi-diameter and yet not 
beyond the reach of all planetary attraction, to have such 
a longitude of ascending node for its orbit as not to equili- 
brate with all attractions through the whole line in which 
its plane cuts the plane of the ecliptic. Suppose this lon- 
gitude of ascending node at first to be 45° from the point 
of Aries, and that the movement of the comet is here re- 
trograde. 

This comet must, then, in its revolution, have all the 
planetary attractions it can meet on the right hand side of 
its course, to come from planets that are moving in oppo- 
site directions to itself, and which must therefore be to and 
past itself; and all the planetary attractions it can meet on 
the left hand, to come from planets that are moving in the 
same direction and thus for some distance concurrent with 
itself. The aggregate amount of attractions received by 
this comet, in any considerable number of revolutions, 
must be the largest on its left hand side, and must there- 
fore secure a turning of the orbit to the left and thereby a 
proportional elevation of the longitude of ascending node. 
It is true that incidentally to some revolutions, the con- 
junctions or oppositions of the planets may be such in 
reference to that particular revolution, that the attractions 
shall then happen to be the most on the right hand, and 
the longitude of ascending node be diminished instead of 
being increased ; but yet, taking one revolution after an- 



356 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

other for successive periods, the attractions of the concur- 
rent passages must exceed in the aggregate the attractions 
of the occurrent passages, and thus, with some oscillations, 
the line of ascending node must rise higher and higher 
from the pomt of Aries. 

That such increase of longitude of ascending node may 
be very considerable in a single revolution is very manifest 
from the observed interference of planetary attractions with 
the regularity of cometary revolutions. Clairaut deter- 
mined that Halley's comet, from perihehon in 1682 to next 
perihelion in 1750, had been disturbed by Saturn's attrac- 
tion so much as to increase its period 100 days, and by 
Jupiter's attraction so much as to augment its period 518 
days, thus making from both influences the comet's revolu- 
tion to be more than 20 months longer time than its proper 
sidereal period. So great a retardation from planetary 
attraction in one revolution, and this moreover from two 
planets only, is sufficient to evince how readily the line of 
ascending node may be modified. Ultimately, our sup- 
posed comet whose orbit has a longitude of ascending node 
at first of 45° must pass on beyond 90°, and having thus 
passed the cuhninating point from Aries, the comet in its 
course instead of now running against the planetary move- 
ments on the right hand side of its major axis, will be 
running with the planetary movements on the left hand 
side of its major axis, and thereby have changed its rela- 
tive course from a retrograde to a direct movement. The 
same excess of attractions on the concurrent side of the 
orbit with the planets must make the line of ascending 
node stni revolve to a greater degree, tiU the point is 
reached in the particular orbital plane of the comet, that 



THE LAW OF COMETS. 



357 



equilibrates the right and left hand attractions through the 
whole revolution, and must there remain with the slight 
oscillations to and fro that incidental disturbanoes will 
occasion. 

Any other supposed degree of longitude of ascending 
node than 45°, must be subject to the same excess of at- 
traction on the side of the concurrent passages of the 
planets, and bring the comet to a conformity of relative 
movement with the planets, and fix its orbit in its balanced 
position. Thus all comets that move in orbits wholly 
within the planetary system must at length become direct, 
even if primarily they were retrograde. 

Now, all the comets whose mean distances are within 
the system are direct in their movement, except the one 
case of Halley's Comet. If that one case remained with 
no tendencies to come to a direct movement, it would 
throw its doubt upon any such principle as determining 
the law. But if that solitary exception clearly manifest 
that it is working under the control of this principle, it 
becomes itself a fact in confirmation, and we do not need 
to have had the observation of any past case, since we 
can see that the last and only remaining case is surely 
coming into conformity. The last 7 revolutions of Halley's 
Comet have been determined in their elements, and the 
changes of longitude of ascending node are as follows : 

The orbit for perihelion passage 1378 had Ion. of as. node 41 

1456 
1531 
1607 
1682 
1759 
1835 



4r 


ir 


00' 


48° 


30' 


00" 


45° 


30' 


00" 


48° 


20' 


28" 


51° 


11' 


18' 


63° 


50' 


21' 


55' 


09' 


5»" 



358 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE IJNIVEESE. 

Here then is a steady and pretty equable increase for 
each revolution, but that of perihelion passage 1531, and 
which must have had an uncommon combination of oppos- 
ing planetary passages, if the calculation has been correct. 
On the whole there is an increase of 8° in 7 revolutions 
of the comet, and though there be but the same increase 
in future, the orbit wiU pass the perpendicular and the 
comet be direct after about 30 more perihelion passages. 
That Halley's Comet is thus approaching to a direct 
movement is a significant fact for the principle that has 
determined all that may have been retrograde, long since 
to have become direct as they are now found. 

Those comets whose mean distances are out of the sys- 
tem, and some of them more than 50 times the mean dis- 
tance of Neptune, can have but little interference from 
planetary attraction in their rapid perihelion passages, and 
none that can bear upon the aphelion half of their orbit, and 
therefore no steady approaches to any change in the order 
of their orbital movement can be anticipated. These 
comets should perpetuate their movements either retro- 
grade or direct, as their primitive introductory impulses 
have determined for them. The chances for each were 
equal, and the facts give as near an equal division as pos- 
sible, for of the 21 comets revolving beyond our system as 
above determined, 10 are direct and 11 retrograde. 

The impulse and attractions that make a hyperbolic 
cometary course must be extreme, and therefore few are 
formed. There were of the 7 determined hyperbolic 
courses, one comet only retrograde. A parabolic course 
is the most probable for a comet, for it most nearly equal- 
izes the projectile and attracting forces, and excludes the 



THE LAWS OF GEOLOGICAL FOKMATIOIT. 359 

incidental interferences that shonld turn it to an ellipse, 
and we find determined 160, of which 70 were direct, 86 
retrograde, 4 not ascertained. As near an equal division 
as a promiscuous determination would lead us to expect. 

12. Laws of Geological Foemation. — The one Idea 
for the formation of worlds, hy the revolutions of rotating 
masses of molten matter, applies to all stars and systems, 
but the facts can be brought within observation and expe- 
riment only on our globe, except as some very general 
phenomena may be discovered in the moon, and the other 
planets and satellites of the system. The earth also is 
completely hidden from our observation, except to the 
depth of some eight or ten miles of its superficial portion. 
But all the facts of Geology that we find conform to the 
conditions imposed by the determining principle we have 
attained. 

The grand facts in the superficial crust of the earth 
are, that it has been broken up by some action of subter- 
ranean forces, and large masses of the broken strata have 
been made to turn up their edges to the surface with a 
greater or less dip toward the horizon, and these upturned 
edges exposed to view, disclose what are the orders and the 
contents of the several strata as they lie in their undis- 
turbed horizontal position. The lowest depths disclosed 
determine unmistakably the near and constant action of in- 
tense heat. The great base of all the discovered and 
approachable strata is the granite, which has been cooled 
and crystallized, and lies upon the burning fluid beneath 
in a sohd mass of unknown thickness. Above this lie the 
gneiss formations unstratified and of great thickness, and 
on this rests the superincumbent stratifications of mica 



360 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

schist of many thousand feet depth. Herein is embraced 
what some Geologists classify as the Cimibrian forma- 
tion^ Sindi in which nothing but the chemical composition 
of unorganized matter appears. Thus far only the an- 
tagonist and diremptive forces have blended, and dead 
matter only with no traces of the life-force appears. 

The Cambrian System of old slate stone a mile m 
thickness through its varied stratifications overtops the 
Cumbrian, and in those strata we begin to find the evi- 
dences of air and water, and that the slate beds in which 
the lowest fossil remains are found, must have been de- 
posits beneath the water and not the coohng crust above 
the fire. The Silurian system is above this for a mile and 
a half in thickness, and its various stratified deposits have 
their hundreds of extinct species of fossil organizations ; 
and then we have the old red sandstone many thou- 
sand feet thick, made up of the fractured and decomposed 
rocks which have been rent asunder and here deposited 
from some older formation, with many fossils of wholly 
extinct species. Then the interposed limestone and coal 
formations, the new red sandstone the oolite and the 
chalk-beds^ all of several miles depth, finish what is known 
as the secondary formation. Higher up still is the tertiary 
formation of lime and clay and sand, on which are the 
diluvial deposits, and we come to the comparatively re- 
cent epoch when man had first his creation and abode 
upon the earth. 

So would the rolling molten mass have formed its sur- 
face, when thrown off as a planet from the revolving sphere 
that had previously discharged the planets which are be- 
yond the earth. The specific gravity of the matter must 



THE LAWS OF GEOLOGICAL FOKMATION. 361 

have determined the Hghter to the higher positions, and as 
these successively cooled and hardened, we should have the 
mica schist, the gneiss and granite in their places, and the 
crust then of sufficient thickness, and the temperature of 
sufficient coolness, that water and an atmosphere might 
there be formed, and the hfe-force be introduced by the 
Creator, and the germs of plants and embryos of animal 
being be given to material nature. Disintegrations and 
decompositions and subterranean convulsions must per- 
petually occur, affi)rdmg materials for new deposits, and 
which may have many alternations of submersion and up- 
heaval, and thus ranging the strata and their varied fossil 
remaios as the geologist now finds them. These subterra- 
nean forces must have often ruptured the whole crust, and 
turned up the edges of the strata, and formed the moun- 
tains and valleys, and exposed the granite, gneiss and mica 
as they now appear. Oftentimes the molten matter be- 
neath will have been forced through the fissures of the 
granite and overlying strata, and cooled into the forms of 
trap and basalt as now found in their localities. 

So, manifestly, with the revolving earth. But the 
Moon, with no rotation on its axis, must cool and harden 
with no wrapping of its layers about it by its own motion, 
and its surface must consequently be, as telescopic observa- 
tion finds it, broken into sharp hUls and mountains, and 
these mountain crests the volcanic outlets and craters of 
the escaping fires. The body of the moon must thus long 
since have lost much of its inner heat, and its gases be- 
come condensed and fluids absolved mainly into its own 
substance. "Water and an atmosphere, if any, must be too 
low for ordinary telescopic observation. 



062 THE NEOESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNTVEESE. 

Observation also determines the fact of an atmosphere 
in the twilight of Mercury and Yenus, and not only an 
atmosphere, but the vapor of clouds and polar snows upon 
Mars, and a very dense but little elevated atmosphere 
above the surface of Jupiter ; and as these Avith all the 
other j)lanets rotate on their axes, so doubtless the same 
laws for binding down the internal heat beneath the over- 
wraj^ping strata, that is found in the earth, prevail in all 
the other planets ; while the fact that no sa'tellite seems to 
have any rotation, but only to turn its side once to the 
primary in its revolution about it, as being in its revolution 
once above and once beneath it, would lead also to the 
conclusion that for these no atmosphere nor water need be 
expected to reveal themselves to our observation. The 
moons of all the other planets must be older than ours, 
and their cooling and absorption of vapors must have left 
an atmosphere on them, even less elevated than on our 
satellite. 

Thus the great physical facts, through all the varied 
fields of natural observation and experience, are found to 
be completely bound in laws that are necessarily deter- 
mined for them in the eternal principles which condition, 
them. 

13. Laws of Stellar Disteibution. — On any clear 
night, there is observable a very j^erspicuous zone or belt 
of a curdled and in some places partially interrupted silvery 
white light, which as a broad bow spans the heavens 
through our whole hemisphere, and which is thus known 
as the galaxy or milky-way. The same belt continued 
spans the southern heavens, and is thus a great circle 
through the whole heavenly sphere. It makes an angle of 



THE LAWS OF STELLAR DISTRrBUTION". 363 

about 40° with the ecliptic, and its plane cuts our globe at 
an inclination of about 63° to the equator, crossing the 
equator on each side of the globe at about 10° east of the 
equmoctial points. It does not quite equally divide the 
heavens, but makes the two hemispheres proportioned as 
8 to 9, with the vernal solstice in the smaller area. This 
galactic circle may be conceived as having its poles at the 
opposite extremities of an axis passing through the centre 
perpendicular to its plane. The northern galactic pole will 
then have its position in the constellation Coma Berenices, 
and the southern galactic pole between the tail of Cetus 
and Apparatus Sculptoris. 

When this broad circle is viewed through a large teles- 
cope, the peculiar white appearance is seen to extend itself 
to some distance on each side, making the milky-way 6° or 
7° broader in the heavens than when observed by the 
naked eye. Its narrowest and brightest portion is in the 
southern hemisphere near the constellation of the Cross and 
at the hind feet of Centaurus, being there about 3° in 
breadth. Its broadest undivided portions are in some 
places 15°, and where there is the broadest separation in 
the northern hemisphere, the whole width from outside to 
outside of the two paths is 22°. There are several breaks 
and interruptions and bifurcating separations in its course, 
but the most remarkable division begins in the southern 
heavens near Circinus and the fore feet of Centaurus, and 
one branch runs up and loses itself near the foot of Serpen- 
tarius, and the more southerly branch passes through Aqui- 
la, Sagitta, Vulpecula, irregularly but uninterruptedly to 
Cygnus. The lost northern branch also recovers itself in 
Aquila, and comes up to meet the southern branch in Cyg- 



364 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

nus. The bifurcations in Circinus and Cygnus are about 
130° apart, and through the main distance both parts con- 
tinue nearly parallel, though slightly converging from the 
mid-point. 

The whole belt is very satisfactorily determined to be 
the shining of thickly clustered stars too minute to be dis- 
tinguishable by the naked eye, the blended light of which 
makes this white circle across both hemispheres. A teles- 
coj)e of high magnifying power resolves very much of this 
belt into distinct stars of the smallest magnitude, and 
though very numerous yet may be carefully counted in the 
field of the telescope, while other parts, though distinct, 
are yet so finely powdered that hke close grains of sand 
they cannot be numbered. Some j^arts of the milky-way 
appear to be filled with these minute stars, which though 
fully resolved do not leave any appreciable spaces separat- 
ing them, and at other places the grains grow thinner and 
the dark unoccupied spaces open between them. There are 
other regions which to the highest glasses are still nnre- 
solvable, and though piercing to more than 2000 times the 
distance of the nearest stars, and from whence it would 
require that the fight should be more than 12,000 years on 
its passage to ns, yet is the depth to which stars beyond 
stars are here placed wholly fathomless. In some parts the 
stars of the first magnitudes appear to fie on a background 
of the smallest resolvable stars, or on a ground of unre- 
solvable brightness at a great remove behind, and nothing 
within the broad space between; and in other parts the 
successive magnitudes seem to fie regularly stratum behind 
stratum, filling the whole depth to the most fathomless 
distances. 



THE LAWS OF STELLAR DISTRIBUTION. 365 

From each galactic pole up to the circle the spaces be- 
tween have been carefully gauged in both hemispheres, 
and in various lines of the galactic meridians, that it might 
be determined how the stars are distributed relatively from 
these galactic poles to the middle of the circle. The whole 
breadth of 90° was divided into zones of 15° each, and the 
field of the telescope passed up through them in one suc- 
cessive galactic latitude after another, designing to cover 
at each remove a circle of 15' diameter. About 2,300 
careful gauges were made by Sir J. Herschel in the south- 
ern heavens, and a similar observation had been made by 
Sir W. Herschel of the northern heavens, and an extended 
analysis of these observations by Prof. Struve determined 
the following results of comparative stellar distribution, 
from the galactic poles upwards through these successive 
zones. 

Northern Galactic Pole. Southern Galactic Pole. 

90° to 75° = 4,32 90° to 75° = 6,05 

75° to 60° = 5,42 75° to 60° = 6,62 

60° to 45°= 8,21 60° to 45° = 9,08 

45° to 30° = 13,16 45° to 30° = 13,49 

30° to 15° = 24,09 30° to 15° = 26,29 

15° to 00° = 53,43 15° to 00° = 59,06 
At the galactic circle, 122,00. 

The increase maintains an astonishing degree of regu- 
larity and uniformity in each hemisphere, the southern 
being invariably a little advance upon the northern, but 
constantly in very fair proportion from zone to zone re- 
spectively. The galactic poles have few, and the galactic 
circle has many, stars. 

There are some very striking and important facts to be 



366 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TJNIVEESE. 

noticed in this augmentation of stars through the higher 
galactic latitudes, viz. that the larger stars up to those of 
the 8th magnitude had no perceptible increase as the lat- 
itude was elevated; that the stars of the 9th and 10th 
magnitudes regularly increased from about 30° on each 
side of the galactic circle; that stars of the 11th mag- 
nitude began to increase soon after leaving the galactic 
poles ; and that from the 12th magnitude and upwards the 
increase was striking and constant from the start. The 
stars at the galactic poles are thus in much greater pro- 
portion of larger to smaller than at the galactic circle. 
The larger keep their own number all the way, the smaller 
only make the increase. It is also a noticeable and im- 
portant fact, that the stellar clusters and nebulae are very 
infrequent, and almost none within the galactic circle, 
but in different directions these clusters and nebulae are 
numerous at large distances from the circle. The most 
remarkable field of any in the heavens for these clusters 
and nebulae, is in the neighborhood of and above the north 
galactic pole, where in about one-eighth of the heavens is 
found one-third of all the clusters and nebulas. 

The next in importance is the region about and above 
the southern galactic pole in the neighborhood of Pisces, 
so that there has been conjectured to be a belt of clusters 
and nebulae at right angles to the galactic circle. But 
close and continued observation does not confirm the con- 
tinuance of such belt of nebulae transverse the milky-way, 
and only determines their existence to the fields above the 
galactic polar regions, the most numerous and extensive 
being found at the northern galactic pole. Indeed that 
part of the region between the galactic poles that hes 



THE LAWS OF STELLAR DISTEIBIJTION. 367 

about Aries, Taurus, and the head of Orion, is almost 
wholly barren of all nebulse. The catalogues of nebulae 
give much the largest number to the northern portion of 
the heavens, making 2299 for the northern, and 1239 for 
the southern hemisphere. The stellar clusters reverse this 
order, being 152 north and 230 south. 

The most remarkable patches of clustered nebulae are 
the larger and smaller Magellanic clouds, or Nubecula 
major and Nubecula minor ^ which circle about the south- 
ern pole at from 26° to 30° from it, and about 12° distant 
from each other. The first covers a space in the heavens 
of 42 square degrees, and the latter 10 square degrees. 
The base of these nebulae is a wholly unresolved field of 
brightness on which are projected stellar clusters and 
single stars of varying magnitudes. Taking the entire 
Nubecula, there are in the major 291 nebulae, 46 clusters, 
and 582 single stars; and in the minor there are 37 neb- 
ulae, 7 clusters, and 200 single stars. The stars and clus- 
ters are doubtless much nearer to the point of observation, 
and stand far within the distance of the unresolved nebulae 
that are in the background. It may be said generally of 
the stars in the southern hemisphere, that though fewer 
than in the northern, they are resplendent with a very 
appreciably augmented brightness. 

Now this somewhat extended enumeration of facts, in 
reference to stellar distribution, can go but little way as 
data for determining, by any deductions therefrom, the 
general structure of the starry heavens. We look through 
into the dark open space, in some places of the surround- 
ing firmament ; again, we have stellar clusters of less and 
greater spacial area in which, though we may distinguish 



368 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE IJNIVEESE. 

the exceedingly minute stars they contain, the resolved 
stars are so thickly studded together, that the spaces be- 
tween are barely recognized; and then there are other 
considerable regions of fathomless depth, through which 
no assisting powerful instruments help the sight to pierce 
and determine that there is other than a perpetual heaping 
of stars one upon another. 

How then the external limits of the starry universe are 
to be drawn, and what internal parts may be filled or 
empty, and what the relative shapes and bearings from 
each other any divisions of the whole may give, the ascer- 
tained facts are as yet far too scanty and partial to deter- 
mine when left to the teaching of the facts alone. A pretty 
common opinion has apparently been admitted, that our 
system is plunged deep in the separate starry stratum of 
the milky-way, and that other distant nebulae are strata as 
distinct and probably as large as our galactic stratum, and 
each forming as perfect a cu'cle of silvery light as ours, to 
those who inhabit the worlds that are as deeply imbedded 
within it as we are in ours. Sir WilHam Herschel early 
expressed such a conjecture, and this has been silently ac- 
quiesced in rather than adopted from any careful inquiry, 
though it is manifest that this early conjecture of Herschel 
has lost aU real suj)port from its author by his subsequently 
disproving the supposed facts that had given rise to it. 
The field of the milky-way has never yet been other than 
very partially fathomed ; large portions are wholly unre- 
solved by the most enlarged modern reflectors. The 
outskirts of the mUky-way may be as remote from us as 
any unresolved nebulae, and we cannot from any observed 



THE LAWS OF STELLAR DISTRIBUTION. 369 

facts yet conclude that it is a separate and independent 
stratum. 

But when we have attained the principle that must de- 
termine the structure of the stellar region*, and necessarily 
fix its locality within definite limits in the universal sphere, 
and thereby apprehend what must be the aggregate locali- 
ties of the starry worlds, we may then bring all the facts 
we have immediately under the circumscription of such 
determining principles, and therein find the accordance of 
facts and principle much sooner, than from any induction 
of facts alone we could hope for the suggestion of an hy- 
pothesis that would bear the test of general observation 
and experiment. The combination of forces, that must re- 
sult from the universal hemispherical pressure and the cen- 
tral impulse of the perpetual generation of the conjoined 
antagonist and . diremptive forces, necessarily excludes 
all world-formations within the limits of two spheroids 
formed on the semi-diameters of the universal sphere, and 
determines their construction in successive layers or strata 
in the circumference of such spheroids, and thence exter- 
nally in the diminishing arcs of increasing circles, till the 
compound forces find their equilibrium out near the surface 
of the universal sphere. 

We will, then, again take the general diagram that 

represents the stellar structure of the universe, and the 

few facts already attained will enable us to so locate our 

solar system, and our terrestrial stand-point in it, that we 

may make these facts altogether to conform to the celestial 

appearances of the most particular and the most extended 

astronomical observations. 

We have the bisection of the universal sphere through 
24 



370 



THE N-ECESSARY LAWS OF THE TIinVEESE. 



its polar diameter in the circumference M F W D, and the 
two spheroids C H D and GIF about the semi-diameters 
C D and C F. The stellar region therefore occupies the 
space exterior to the spheroids C H D and GIF, and ex- 




tends out indefinitely toward the circumference of the 
universal sphere till it finds its equilibrium of hemispherical 
pressure and central impulse, say, m the general spherical 
strata N" F and N D. The equatorial plane M W will then 
indicate the apparent place, in its extremities, of the great 
galactic circle. Now this galactic circle has the earth's 
equator inclined towards it about 63°, and which must 
make the plane of the earth's equator, say, in the line E K, 
and consequently the polar axis in a line perpendicular 
thereto, yiz., B A, with B its boreal and A its austral 
point. But the galactic cu'cle divides the apparent 
heavens somewhat unequally, in the proportion of about 
8 in the southern side to 9 in. the northern, and which 



THI> LAWS OF STELLAK DISTRIBUTION. 3T1 

must place the stand-point of observation in our system so 
much to the right hand of the universal equatorial plane, 
or plane of the galactic circle, say at S. The echptic must 
thus be about 23° inclined from the earth's equator, and 
about 40° inclined toward the galactic circle ; or, if we 
take the mean between the earth's orbit and the plane of 
the sun's equator, as the general orbital plane of the whole 
solar system, we shall have about 27° of inclination from 
the plane of the earth's equator and about 37° of inclination 
towards the galactic circle, making this general orbital 
plane of the solar system to be in the dotted line O R, 
This orbital plane of the system must, again, have been at 
right angles to the tangent of the spherical stratum out of 
which the solar system was constituted, and about the line 
of which the central impulse must have made it to revolve, 
and which will make that tangent to be the dotted line 
L Q, and the stratum to be the arc of the sphere S F. 
And since this also exactly conforms to the demand for a 
diminished arc of an increasing sphere, proportioned to the 
distance from the centre C relatively to the circumference 
of the sphere C I F, we have all the perfect coincidences 
of fact and principle through the whole operation that can 
belong to nothing but true science. 

The point S may be any one in a circle of points at the 
same distance from the centre and also from the galactic 
plane on that side, and all such points will have the same 
s:eneral relation to the universal stellar structure, and from 
each as a stand-point the heavens will have the same gene- 
ral appearance. On the opposite side of the galactic plane 
there must also be another circle of points in the same 
relative position to the stellar structure from that hemi- 



372 THE NECESSAET LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

sphere, and from which the heavens must have the same 
general appearance, except as the galactic circle must stand 
in the opposite relation, and the orbital movement of the 
systems must be in the opposite du-ections. But many- 
further facts perfectly coincide with the principle which 
determines this position for our solar system. Beside the 
unequal apparent division of the heavens by the galactic 
circle, from a point about 5° removed from its plane where 
our system stands on the right hand side, there must also 
from this position be the apparent bifurcation and division 
of the milky-way just as our heavens present their phe- 
nomena. The waving lines diverging from the centre on 
each side of the universal equatorial plane, as given in the 
figure, represent in their opening the vacancy that must 
occur in the stellar distribution quite around the universal 
sj^here, on account of the gradually diminishing forces in 
operation as the distance from the centre increases, and 
such opening must appear as the galactic separations are 
seen to be from our point of observation. Each diurnal 
revolution must bring the observer under such opening, 
and if in the northern hemisphere, then the northern place 
of bifurcation must aj^pear above the horizon, and if the 
observer be south, then the southern place of bifurcation 
must appear, and if on or near the equator, then both the 
northern and southern places of separation will be seen 
with all the space between them. At some part of every 
diurnal revolution must also the observer lose sight of the 
galactic separation, for he must daily pass imder that por- 
tion of the galactic circle whose direction will be within 
toward the universal centre and where the separations 
must be too shght to appear. 



THE LAWS OF STELLAR EISTEIBUTION. 373 

The hemispherical pressure and the central oiitworkings 
in composition must determine the thickest material to be 
generated and located near the regions on each side of the 
universal equatorial plane, and thus each stratum will there 
have the stars the nearest together and becoming more 
sparse backward toward the universal poles; yet such 
frequency of stars in their respective strata will not be the 
chief occasion of the white galactic light, but the much 
deeper space and thus the many more stars that come in 
the galactic plane from our stand-point on the earth, and 
the range that the earth's position must give to them in 
their general distribution to secure such concentration in 
the line of vision. If we take a field of vision from the 
earth's position with the distance S C for a spherical radius, 
it is manifest that the direction in which the stars will ap- 
pear to be constantly condensing from all sides will be in 
the plane of the galactic circle, and the same will also be 
true if we increase our spherical radius to any telescopic 
distance, S A or S B ; the position of the earth is such in 
the great stellar structure, that the plane of the galactic 
circle must be that to which the lines of vision are on all 
sides converging, that they may pass through the thickest 
portions or the deepest gauges of the stellar region. The 
narrowest portion must be in the direction S C, and which 
will bring the line in the region of Charles' Oak near to the 
Southern Cross, and the broadest portion must be in the 
direction S N", which will give the middle of the galactic 
separation, or the region of Aquila ; and to such a result 
the facts themselves conform. The brightest part of the 
heavens will be that in which the proportions of number 
and magnitude of the stars combine to give the greatest 



374 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE TINT VERSE. 

light, and which will not necessarily be in the thickest part 
of the milky-way. Some of the brightest portions of the 
heavens are lighted up by stars of the first magnitude oc- 
curring near together and also in near neighborhood to the 
milky-way, as in the region of the Southern Cross, the por- 
tion from Orion through Canis Major and Argo, and also 
the Altar and the tail of the Scorpion, and in the northern 
hemisphere the parts about the bifurcation in Cygnus, but 
these bright stars of the first magnitudes are doubtless to 
be apprehended as comparatively near to the earth, and 
projected by the line of vision upon the circle of the galaxy 
beyond them, or the spaces adjoining. The least illumi- 
nated portion is that part of the milky- way between Mono- 
ceros and Perseus, and which will stand opposite to the 
galactic separation, or towards the interior of the universal 
sphere. 

But the most striking conformity of facts and princi- 
ple, given in this j)osition for our system, is the relative 
proportion of the stars in numbers as the observation pro- 
ceeds from the galactic poles on each side up to the galac- 
tic circle. We have above seen that the gauges from the 
northern galactic pole to the circle, are invariably some- 
what less than those from the southern galactic pole to the 
circle, though the ratios of increment are very similar in 
each, and the position of the system must make such ap- 
pearance necessary. A gauge at the distance of a spheri- 
cal radius S g in the direction of the northern galactic 
pole, up to the galactic circle, must perpetually pass into 
an increased thickness of the stellar strata, and thus a con- 
tinually augmenting number of stars must come within 
the vision until the milky-way is reached in the meridian. 



THE LAWS OF STELLAR DISTRIBUTION. 375 

And so also with the spherical radius from S p, in the 
direction of the southern galactic pole, a similar augmen- 
tation of thickness in the stellar strata as observed from 
our position must occur, as the gauges approach the milky- 
way in the meridian from the southern galactic pole. But 
inasmuch as the earth's position in its system is a little on 
the northern side of the galactic circle, the thickness of 
the stellar strata and consequently the number of the stars 
in the vision must always be proportionally greater 
through the lines of the southern gauges. 

And still further, this increase does not occur in stars 
larger than the 8th magnitude, thus manifesting that the 
stars at the distances of S p and S g must be of the '7th 
and 8th magnitudes. Within the spheres formed by the 
radii S p and S g, the stars must increase in magnitude 
to the 1st as nearest to S, and as those of the same mag- 
nitude will on an average stand out on all sides from S in 
the same thickness of steUar strata, so the gauges must 
make on all sides the same numbers for the same magni- 
tudes. But it will be observed in the figure that an 
increase of radius beyond S p and S g to reach the stars 
of the 9th and 1 0th magnitudes, the gauges must meet 
the arcs of the lower steUar strata C H D and GIF quite 
above the line of the galactic axis, and within about 30° 
of the galactic circle, and from thence the gauges can 
make some but only a slight increment up to the meridian. 
And then again, extending the spherical radius to reach 
stars of the 11th magnitude, the gauges must meet the 
spherical arc still further from the galactic circle, and their 
ratio of increment must be proportionally conspicuous; 
and from thence to the smallest telescopic magnitudes of 



376 THE NECESSARY LAWS OF THE TINIVERSE. 

the lYtli and ISth, we come to the spherical radius at the 
distances S G and S P, where the gauges must meet the 
spherical arcs on their opposite sides, and the stars of 
these smallest magnitudes are found even at the galactic 
poles, aad their increment is perpetual from the pole quite 
up to the galactic circle. 

It is also in this manifest, how the stars of larger mag- 
nitude may be found with large vacancies between them 
and those of much smaller magnitudes. By looking 
through the telescope in the direction of either galactic 
pole, the stars in its field will be visible from S g and S p, 
as stars from the 1st to the 8th magnitude, but the space 
will then be vacant till we reach the stars on the further 
portion of the spherical arcs, and of the smallest magni- 
tudes about the galactic poles. As the telescope shall be 
elevated above the galactic poles toward the meridian, 
the arcs will be struck at higher points and the vacant 
spaces will grow perpetually smaller, until they vanish 
quite away in the culminating point, and the stellar strata 
will be fi'om thence in solid continuity. 

The stellar clusters and nebulse also quite conform to 
the conditions demanded in this relative position of the 
solar system. If the nebulae are but stellar clusters unre- 
solvable by telescopic power because of their greater dis- 
tances, then it must foUow that the unresolved nebulae must 
be in those portions of the stellar structure that admit 
of great distance. The region most fertile in stellar clus- 
ters and nebulge is that about and above the north galactic 
pole, in the constellations Leo Major, Canes Venatici, Coma 
Berenices, and the head and wings of Yirgo ; and in the 
region about the south galactic pole with a northern direc- 



THE LAWS OF STELLAR DISTEIBUTION. 377 

tion from it, in the constellation Pisces, there are also fre- 
quent stellar clusters. By large magnifying glasses these 
are mostly resolvable, and therefore must lie within dis- 
tances no greater than those of the galactic poles. The 
nebulae in the sword of Orion and another in Andromeda's 
girdle, are barely if at all completely resolvable, and they 
lie, the former pretty nearly over the earth's position, 
when the southern side of the galactic circle is on the 
meridian, and may therefore be at the distance of a spheri- 
cal radius S B, and the latter nearly in the direction S O, 
and may therefore be at any distance admitted by the 
whole thickness of the stellar strata in that direction. 

The very remarkable nebulae, or clusters of nebulae, in 
the extreme southern hemisphere, called Magellanic clouds 
or Nubecula major and Nubecula minor, have been above 
described. The stars and stellar clusters, which appear in 
the line of vision projected upon the nebulae as their back- 
ground, must have an intervening position, and the nebulas 
themselves, which are hitherto wholly irresolvable, must 
be among the objects furthest removed within that sphere 
that the light penetrates to reach our earth. Their posi- 
tions are near the south terrestrial pole, the Nubecula ma- 
jor nearly in its direction, and the Nubecula minor on the 
opposite side of the pole from the milky-way, and an in- 
spection of the diagram at once convinces that the stars 
and stellar clusters have their positions mthin the distance 
S C, in the direction of the earth's axis, and that the nebu- 
lae themselves are stellar clusters on the inner stratiun of 
the spherical arc below the south pole, as here presented 
beyond the distance S A. 

These many conformities of facts and principle, confirm 



378 THE K-ECESSAEY LAWS OF THE rmVEESE. 

the position of the solar system and the law for stellar dis- 
tribution as we have given them. 

14. Laws of Life. — ^The most general laws only need 
here be noticed, for the general principles of the life-force 
nave not been sufficiently determinative of the facts to 
make any minute conformities extensively observable. The 
life-force is a spiritual activity and retains its simplicity in 
its incorporation with matter, and can, therefore, never 
itself become phenomenal. Material forces only appear, 
and the life-force becomes known only as it registers itself 
m the material forces which it assimilates. Our insight of 
it is only in the conception that it meets the simple activi- 
ties of the niaterial forces, and thus becomes itself a force 
by dissolving and interpenetrating other forces and using 
their component simple energies. When thus using and 
assimilating the elemental activities of other forces, the 
matter incorporated by it is quick and organic, but when 
the assimilating activity is withdrawn, the material forces 
run on again their own conditioned changes. 

The spiritual activity in the life-force has within its first 
incorporation as a germ, the potential forms of its full ma- 
turity, and each germ uses material nature in its own way 
for building up its own forms in the matter it incorporates. 
This inherent formative power adajDts itself to its wants, 
and sends do^m a tap-root in the vegetable, or heals a 
wound and mends a broken bone in the animal, when cir- 
cumstances demand it. 

The vegetable life can use for its body the unorganized 
material forces, and such rude matter as has never come 
into any organization is here first made the tabernacle for 
the living spirit. This spirit, as a mere vegeta solely, incor- 



THE LAWS OF LIFE. 379 

porates without any sentient activity, and uses certain ap- 
propriate unorganized forces as the elements which it 
assimilates and takes into its own organism. And yet 
such matter as has already been used in vegetation, the 
old cast off remnant and dissolved portion of decayed 
vegetation, seems the most readily to be made the nour- 
ishment of other plants. The animal body is wholly fed by 
that which has once been vitalized, and must live and grow 
by incorporating vegetable matter, or the bodies of other 
animals, and never feeds on unorganized substances. 

The law of sex, which the idea makes necessary to the 
propagation of the species, binds up the facts in vegetable 
as well as in animal generation. The fructification in plants 
is through the sexual flowers, and these may be found 
sometimes of both sexes on the same plant — ^the flower and 
fruit on different places in the stock, or sometimes both 
flower and fruit set m the same calyx, — or the flowers are 
invariably found, in other varieties, with opposite sexes on 
different stocks. Again, among animals, the propagation 
is sometimes through an impregnation of an ovum, and 
which by incubation produces the offspring in an oviparous 
birth, or the pregnancy takes place in a teeming womb and 
the embryo is produced in a viviparous generation. The 
law of sex is universal in all organized material being, and 
the great difference between generation and growth is, 
that the growing development is an assimilation of matter 
in the germ which passes back and states itself in the stock, 
or is taken up and incarnated through the circulation; 
while in generation there is a new organism begotten, that 
ultimately separates itself from the parent stock, and passes 
on in its own growth by an independent development. 



380 THE NECESSAUT LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

All different varieties of the same species may procreatej 
but the general law is that different species shall not mingle 
in procreation. The facts sometimes give an offspring 
from nearly allied distinct species in the same family, but 
such hybrid generations either never propagate, or only 
through short successions by a recurrence to one of the 
original species. Nature soon excludes a blended progeny. 

We finish this chapter, and thus conclude our whole 
work, by a short statement of the Law or Physical Exee- 
GiES, which the principles of the forces in nature determine, 
and enable us by a rational insight very completely to ap- 
prehend as necessarily inclusive of all static and dynamic 
agencies. 

The sources of mechanical power, of which in experi- 
ence any one can avail himself, are sufficiently definite to 
be exactly and comprehensively classified. All naechanism 
may be traced to one of the following sources of moving 
energy, viz., 1. Weights. 2. Flowing currents. 3. Heat 
and cold. 4. Combustibles. 5. Magnetics. 6. Electrics. 
1. Muscular action. 

By a closer careful observation in experiment, it be- 
comes manifest that a number of these are convertible with 
others or may be included within others. The imj)ulses of 
flowing currents, whether of fluids or gases, may be com- 
bined in some cases with weights, and all be classed as 
gravity, or in other cases with heat and cold, and thus all 
be classed as expansibility. Running streams and flowing 
tides and atmospheric pressure come under the former ; 
steam, congelation and crystallization come within the lat- 
ter. From what we have seen also of the combination, in 
congelation and crystallization, of the matter congealed or 



THE LAW OF PHYSICAL FORCES. 381 

crystallized with the latent heat of fusion, or with the heat 
set free in chemical dissolution, we may exclude cold as 
any positive agent and ascribe all expansion to heat. 

Again, the force of combustion may also be referred to 
the one source of heat. Experiments prove that by the 
action of solar light on the green parts of plants there is 
effected a deoxydation of carbon and hydrogen from car- 
bonic acid and water, and that thus what is combustible in 
all vegetation is the product of radiated heat in combina- 
tion with the material forces. This combination constitutes 
the fibrous or woody substance in plants that is known as 
combustible. The incorporated solar heat lies latent in the 
substance, and the fire of burning wood, charcoal, or mine- 
ral coal, is only solar heat reproduced in the liberation 
given to it by the dissolving combustion. 

We may thus reduce our physical agents to, 1. "Weight. 
2. Heat. 3. Magnetism. 4. Electricity. 5. Muscular 
action. 

But, as we have found the comprehensive antagonist- 
force to be both gravity, magnetism, and electricity, and 
therefore the whole to be but one agent in different rela- 
tive positions, we have then, m reality, only the three 
sources of physical energy, viz. Gravity, Heat, and Muscu- 
lar Action. But muscular energy may now be very safely 
taken as having its whole source in the heat-force. Care- 
ful experiment has well established the fact that the 
animal heat, the secretion and excretion of the fleshy tis- 
sues, and the muscular energy, find their respective equiv- 
alents in the oxydation and assimilation of the food used. 
There is a portion of heat given off in the organism and 
radiating out in the atmosphere, a portion combined by 



382 THE ifECESSAET LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

vital chemistry iii the incarnating or flesh-making process, 
and another portion exhausted in muscular action. The 
whole jDrocess of the transformation of the constituent 
heat ia the food into animal heat, fleshy fibre, and muscu- 
lar energy, cannot as yet be brought within experiment ; 
nor can the due proportions of the heat-force in the food 
be |)i'ecisely determined for these three results, in order 
that they may be most perfect on the whole in the animal 
economy ; but that an increase in either one, will find its 
equivalent 'diminution in one or both of the others, may 
be taken as sufficiently established. When digestion and 
assimilation goes on in a state of general muscular rest, 
the oxydation of the blood in the lungs, and the deter- 
muiation of the circulation in the arterial currents, secures 
a perpetual combustion, and producing of carbonic acid as 
the result of the oxydation, and thus a portion of heat is 
communicated to the blood and imjDarted to the whole 
organism. When strong muscular exertion occurs, more 
heat is necessarily demanded and used in the muscular 
contractions; and while the arterial circulation is quick- 
ened, the heat of the animal system is proportionally ele- 
vated and worked off in the muscular labor, and a proj)or- 
tionally larger new supply of food must be procured. 

From pretty careful estimates it has been concluded 
that about == of the heat liberated from the food in oxydation 
may be regularly returned, by a horse at labor, in weights 
raised or resistance overcome. It cannot be said that all 
the food is at any time completely oxydated, but about 
I of what is chemically supj^lied in the whole animal lab- 
oratory must be used in the other agencies of the animal 
economy, and if any more than about } be exhausted in 



THE LAW OF PHYSICAL FOECES. 383 

muscular action, the aninial organism will be injured. It 
is doubtless fair to infer that where the muscular exertion 
is too little called regularly forth, the redundancy of the 
heat liberated and entering into the assimilated fleshy 
fibre, or into the chemical process of dissolving the worn- 
out living tissues that the excrementitious portions may 
be thrown off, must induce the deterioration of the animal 
system that always follows the neglect of proper muscular 
exercise. No economical expedients can secure more than 
a certain amount of work done for a certain amount of 
food consumed, and no sanatory regulations can secure 
health, but by the supply of so much food, and so much 
of its liberated heat used up in muscular activity. 

It will thus follow, that the vital agency is no source 
of physical, mechanical energy. It is not the source of 
any new power, but in its interaction and incorporation 
with other forces, as antagonist or diremptive, it uses such 
forces and subserves its own wants by them. The heat- 
force, especially in the matter that the vital activity inter- 
penetrates, is made by the vitaUty to work for it. As a sen- 
tient life the activity may excite the muscular irritability, 
but the muscle has no mechanical force to be applied, ex- 
cept as it is itself supphed by the dissolved food in the 
heat-force thence imparted. The formative energy inher- 
ent in the germ has secured the fibrous arrangements and 
attachments of the muscle, and the sentient irritation that 
uses the conveyed heat-force secures, by the muscular 
contraction, the mechanical effects determined in the pre- 
arranged attachments of such muscular pulleys to their 
strong bony levers. We have therefore, in this exclusion 
of the vital agency from any direct mechanical energy, 



384 THE NECESSAEY LAWS OF THE UNIVEESE. 

only the forces of Gravity and Heat as comprising within 
themselves all the physical powers in nature. 

This comprehension of all mechanical force and move- 
ment within the two original and constitutive forces of 
nature, antagonist and diremptive, is a striking confirma- 
tion that our Cosmology has been made to rest on the 
basis of a true and valid science. The principle of the 
generation of the material universe involved the agency 
of these two forces, and needed none other. Spiritual 
Activity finds occasion to go out in its energy in the orig- 
ination of both counteraction and diremption, and in the 
combination of these, all that is space-filling and time- 
determining has its existence. And now, when we come 
to examine the actual forces operating anywhere mthin 
the created universe, and make an analysis of all the 
mechanical powers we can extract from nature, we find 
them all resolvable into weight and expansion, or gravity 
and heat, which are only the pressure of antagonist activ- 
ities and the disparting of diremptive activities. Nature 
needed nothing more for its own existence; nature uses 
nothing more for its onward development; nature jdelds 
nothing more to human solicitation or extortion. 

And the amount of this mechanical energy of both 
kinds is wholly incapable of either augmentation or anni- 
hilation, but by an absolute and supernatural agent. The 
only way of coming in and going out is through the great 
central Spiritual Activity. New creations flow only from 
that source; annihilations of old existences can only go 
up back again into that source. Nature's gravity and 
nature's heat have perpetually the same measure in the 



THE LAW OF PHYSICAL FORCES. 385 

aggregate, and both equilibrate -each other ; and these 
intelhgence may use according to their necessary laws, 
but all derangement of the necessary laws of nature would 
itself subvert all intelligence. 
25 



APPENDIX 



RATIONAL COSMOLOGY ACCORDS WITH THE MOSAIC HISTORY 
OF CREATION. 



In the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis, is a general 
history of the creation, and though very concise, yet is the record 
very methodical and comprehensive. The first chapter and the 
first three verses of the second give the process in detail through 
six successive days, and the cessation or resting from the creative 
work on the seventh. The remainder of the second chapter has a 
more desultory account of some promiscuous items of the work 
together with some of the circumstantial dealings of the Creator 
with man in his primitive state. The creative work in general, and 
the making of plants and herbs antecedently to any rain upon the 
earth, together with the formation of the first man from the dust 
of the ground are mentioned in verses 4-7 ; the planting of a garden 
and putting the man into it to dress and keep it, and the prohibi- 
tion to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are narra- 
ted in verses 8-17 ; and then the making of woman from a rib of 
Adam, and giving her to him in marriage, are described in the last 
part of the chapter, verses 18-25, 

This inspired record is to be understood as God's representa- 
tion of his own work, and containing the truth so far as the history 
goes, whether it be supposed to have been originally composed by 
Moses under inspiration, or hy divine guidance adopted by him 
from some earlier composition, and whether, again, it be assumed 



DIFFICULTIES IN THE MOSAIC EECOED. 387 

that Moses was possessed of the full meaning of the communication 
or not. This record is not given in scientific form nor with philo- 
sophical precision and method, but, as Dr. Lewis has ably and 
satisfactorily shown in his Six Days of Creation, the facts are pre- 
sented as they would appear through the medium of the senses. 
Principles and laws as given in thought are not noticed, and only 
phenomenal representations are made as they would appear alike 
to the unreflecting and the scientific scholar. The language is 
designed to carry a common meaning to all readers in every age. 

Natural science, especially in the fields of Astronomy and 
Geology, has attained conclusions which have seemed in some cases 
to be in conflict with this Bible record. Philological interpreta- 
tion has been modified in various ways to meet these difficulties 
from science, and by looking at the Scripture account as intended 
to give a picture of facts for the sense, and interpreting some words 
by usage in other places of the Scriptures with a less common mean- 
ing, the discrepancies have been much relieved, and science and the 
Bible surprisingly harmonized and made to be corroborative of 
each other. A correct Bible philology and a true natural philoso- 
phy must doubtless give facts in unison, and where their facts seem 
in any measure as yet to be contradictory, a more complete investi- 
gation will at length secure a thorough communion. 

But there are not only the difficulties introduced from the dis- 
coveries of science, and which more complete investigations must 
remove, there are also some inherent difficulties in the Mosaic 
record itself, and which are induced by apparently irreconcilable 
incongruities in its own statements, and which no induction of facts 
from human experience seem able to reach and relieve. The double 
creation of light, or the making of light antecedently to the mak- 
ing of the sun, the creation of plants and herbs before the sun was 
made, the mist that covered the earth before there was any rain, 
etc., are of this description and still leave their perplexities in spite 
of labored attempts at explanation. And now, while the principles 
and laws attained in the foregoing cosmological investigation will 
be found fully to harmonize their determinations with the phenom- 
enal representations of the Bible and the general deductions of 
natural science, and even more clearly to expound and harmonize 
their separate facts, there will moreover be found this incomparable 
advantage from the cosmology, that it will remove these apparent 
incongruities in the statements of the record, and show the facts 



388 COSMOLOGY ACCOEDS WITH MOSES. 

to be as the statements from the necessity of the case. "We shall 
need only to follow the creative process step by step through the 
successive days in the Mosaic record with the cosmological princi- 
ples attained constantly in mind, and the accordance of each, and 
the explanation of one by the other will continually appear. 

The philological question whether the Hebrew word for " crea- 
ted " in the first verse means creation in the sense of origination, 
or only a new fashioning of old materials may be decided either 
way without prejudice to the main facts in the history. If the first 
view be taken, then " the beginning " is the first origin of material 
existence, and if the second be adopted, then "the beginning" is 
subsequent to the origin of matter, and is the commencement of 
that work which remodeled our world out of old materials, and 
placed it in sensible communion with other worlds around it. The 
last view may be consistent with the creed of a divine origination 
of aU matter, though it exclude the inspired communication of such 
a fact from the Mosaic account. After the first verse, both views 
would proceed in the same way. But the cosmological principles 
attained enable us to go back to the very morning of creation in 
the origination of matter itself, and with this light we can hardly 
fail to recognize a divine intention in the Mosaic history to give to 
us an account of the very beginning of material existence. The first 
verse of the Bible may well be applied to what we recognize as the 
cosmological fact, that God in his pure spiritual being put forth his 
simple activity in an antagonist action originating force, and there- 
by took and filled and held a position in space, and this filling of a 
place with a force that must exclude all other forces from the same 
position was the origination of substantial matter, and thereby the 
occupying of so much space with what was thus made by him to 
stand out from him, or to exist distinct from his being, though from 
the first and ever dependent on his agency. The work of creation, 
commencing in this first point of counter-agency, must pass on 
through all the process of generating the universal sphere, and bring- 
ing it into a fluid state by the permeation of the heat-force that just 
held loose every molecule in the primitive ether, and then sending the 
continual stream of the combined central forces in composition with 
the counteracting hemispherical pressure, as we have above care- 
fully traced, and thereby thickening this primitive ether to a chaotic 
state of chemical forces that became a resisting material pushed 
and driven into myriads of separate wheeling spheres, and those 



THE MOSAIC STAND-POINT. 389 

spheres sending off from them in their revolutions, each its own 
planets and their satellites. The perpetuation of the central coun- 
ter-agency must, at length, necessarily result in this making of 
countless distinct systems and their orderly arrangement in the 
universal ethereal sphere. 

In all this process the passing of a time could only be determin- 
ed by the movement that in succession was filling out this uni- 
versal sphere, and pushing its divided portions into wheeling 
spheres, and forming these spheres into separate systems. No 
cyclical measure can be applied to estimate the duration, and give 
a definite period to the process. But up to the point when, in our 
solar sphere, our planet Earth was thrown out by the projectile 
tangential force, and sent in its revolution and rotation to condense 
and round itself into a solid globe, may we apply the declaration 
and include all the work and the time denoted in this first verse, 
" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The 
whole material for the heavens and the earth was here brought 
into being, and other systems together with our solar system were 
in process of formation, and thus the creative work had its be- 
ginning. 

And' here, because the process in one world would be substan- 
tially the process in all worlds, and especially because it was design- 
ed for the intelligent inhabitants of our planet, the inspired history 
takes our earth as the stand-point, and describes the subsequent 
phenomenal facts and changes as if observed solely from this ter- 
restrial position. The short general declaration in the first verse 
includes all that took place till the mass of our planet was separated 
from all else, and then that becomes the point of observation for 
all that follows. The next announcement in the second verse tells 
what was then its phenomenal condition. Just as the molten frag- 
ment had been thrown from the periphery of its wheeling sphere, 
itself shapeless without and as yet chemically uncompounded within, 
and flying off into the abyss before light had dawned, no words can 
be more forcefully graphic than these which inspiration has given. 
■' The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon 
the face of the deep." But the forces which God had sent off" in it, 
and with it, were working all through and about it. The revolving 
force threw the upper part of the mass over and forward, the last 
adhesions before they parted and the constant attractions of the 
parent sphere after the parting held the lower portions back, and 



390 COSMOLOGY ACCOEDS WITH MOSES. 

tliis power, as if of the Spirit of God, brooded over the whole fluid 
matter, and brought the whole into form, and condensed its matter 
into chemical consistency. The earth became a globe of consistent 
compact matter, rotating on its own axle, and revolving in its de- 
termined orbit. 

Thus finding the stable point of observation, the history begins 
an orderly and methodical process of narration. It divides itself 
into distinct notices of the successive events that come out from 
imder the creative hand, and puts these into six successive days, 
when all is completed and the Creator ceases or rests from his work 
on the seventh day. These consecutive items follow each other 
just as the cosmological principles determine that they must, and 
just also as the geological discoveries affirm that they did, and the 
Scripture record is therein completely harmonious with cosmological 
truth and geological fact. 

First Day. Light. The earth was moving on in darkness, for 
though itself a fiery vaporous mass, and thoroughly permeated by 
the heat-force, still was this as yet so combined with the antagonist- 
forces that no radiations could go out in sufficiently modulated 
vibrations to become luminous. The primal sphere must diminish 
itself in the ejection of its planets and the condensing of its own 
matter, till it shall become a central orb of such dimensions that 
the ensphered ether about it shall gravitate towards it, and rest 
upon it, with sufficient intensity to give the concentric molecules 
consistency together as fixed spherical layers, and then the diremp- 
tive or heat-force must necessarily work itself out under this pressure, 
first in the polar and then in the equatorial directions from the 
centre and, in the consequent alternating prolate and oblate move- 
ment, the vibration we have before so thoroughly examined must 
begin and continue perpetual. "When this ethereal gravitation has 
become sufficiently intense, and the surface of the central orb suf- 
ficiently contracted to secure the requisite breadth and rapidity to 
the vibrations, then must first the phenomenal light be given. This 
was the point in the creative work when God said, " Let light be. 
and light was." The period for this must have been long after the 
discession of the Earth as a planet, and quite probably even Venus 
was born in darkness, but ere Mercury became separated from this 
central body the luminous vibrations had doubtless commenced, and 
the morning-twilight of our solar system dawned on its hitherto 
cheerless worlds. 



LIGHT AND THE FIRMAMENT. 391 

The first appearance of light would be faint, and grow brighter 
only as the condensing central orb grew less, and the pressure of 
the ethereal gravity upon its surface greater, nor for a long time 
could it be other than a pale effusion insufficient to give to an ob- 
server upon the earth the defined outlines of the orb from whence it 
came, nor by reflection the outlines of the revolving planets. As 
the earth turned on its axle, there would at length come the degree 
of light that should permit the observer to determine the direction 
from whence the radiations came, and thus to distinguish between 
the diurnal and nocturnal successions, and in this " God divided the 
light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the 
darkness he called night." In this terminates the first historic 
epoch in the creative work, or the first creative day. That this 
could not have been a day determined by the terrestrial rotation to 
and from the luminous vibrations is manifest in that the creative 
day must have included countless numbers of the terrestrial natural 
day. The great wheeling sphere had been perpetually diminishing 
by its ejections and condensations from the space included in Nep- 
tune's orbit down to the space probably within Venus' orbit, and 
there the light was made by the ethereal pressure upon it and the 
radiating vibrations sent out from it, and this light augmented as 
the central orb contracted, and Mercury was ejected, but at the close 
of this epoch, and on until in the fourth creative day, the sun did 
not appear, nor was the light sufficient to give reflected vibrations 
that the moon should be visible. There were many terrestrial days 
and nights, without sun, moon or stars, in the first creative day of 
the Mosaic record. 

Second Day. The Fiemament. At its first discession from 
the primal sphere, the mass from which the earth was composed 
was so intensely permeated with the heat-force as to be in a gaseous 
rather than a liquid state. Its volume then must have filled at 
least all the space within the moon's orbit, for its equatorial cir- 
cumference must have been at that distance from its centre when 
the moon was thrown from it, and its daily rotation must have been 
in time the period of a lunar month. While, then, the great central 
orb was still further condensing itself after the earth's discession 
from it, and approaching that size which should induce luminous 
vibrations, and yet contracting more and more, the earth also was 
in the same way condensing and contracting its volume, and although 
during the first creative day no changes of a general appearance 



392 COSMOLOGY ACCORDS WITH MOSES. 

occurred in it only that light dawned upon it, yet in this second 
creative day it had cooled and condensed so far that an outer shell 
had formed over the consolidated molten matter within, and the 
strata wrapped over on the outside in the rotations had formed a 
stable crust, on which aqueous mist and vapor settled down and 
rested. As the coats of these cooling strata shut in more and more 
the radiations of the inner fire, the mist and vapors became more 
and more condensed and ultimately, in liquid form, the water ac- 
cumulated at some depth over the even surface. The heavy mist 
in the thin atmosphere at first kept itself in contact with the earth, but 
the cooling crust and the accumulating water at length gave such 
density and buoyancy to the atmosphere, that the mist and vapors 
were lifted from the surface, and a separating space appeared be- 
tween their lower stratum and the waters accumulated beneath. 
This interposed space of the cleared atmosphere grew gradually 
broader, and ultimately lifted the cloudy stratum so high that it 
appeared as a firm arch holding the mists above from all com- 
munion with the waters below. This is that of which the his- 
tory says, " And God made the firmament, and divided the waters 
which were under the firmament from the waters which were 
above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firma- 
ment Heaven. " 

This ancient conception was just that which the appearance 
presented. The phenomenal sky was a solid arch or dome standing 
firm in its place ; above it, the waters in the clouds were treasured, 
and separated from the waters lying liquid on the face of the earth. 
The heavens are thus spoken of as being " spread out as a tent to 
dwell in ; " and in the clear radiance of the day this firmament, or 
the sky, is said by Job to be " strong, and as a molten looking-glass." 
This space beneath the firmament would grow broader, and thus 
the heaven would grow higher as the atmosphere grew denser, but 
from the first it " divided the waters from the waters. " 

Third JDaij. Division of Land and Water and Creation of 
Plants. The superficial crust of the earth was still thickening, and 
the condensing vapors were then still augmenting the depth 
of waters upon it, and they must ultimately have covered the 
globe many miles deep. Inequalities of strength and thick- 
ness in the crast, and in the action of the superincumbent 
waters, and especially the contractions and condensations going on 
beneath must have made local elevations and depressions on the 



THE LAND FEOM THE WATEK, AND PLANTS. 393 

earth's surface, and occasional fractures must have occurred, and 
the mingling of the lower fires with the inflowing waters must 
have taken place, and many dislocations of the primitive strata must 
thus have been made, the most violent and extensive of which had 
upturned, and heaved out large fragments of the solid crust, and 
in this way hills must have risen and valleys sunk in the former 
level bed of the waters. The tops of continents like emerging isl- 
ands then arose, and the dry land began to appear. This process 
went on until considerable portions had been elevated, and the 
waters had retired into the local depressions, and this work being 
accomplished, " God called the dry land earth, and the gathering 
together of the waters called he seas. " The first uncovered por- 
tions must have been of limited area and of slight elevation, and 
the constant abruptions of the earth's crust must have made fre- 
quent alternations of uprisings and submersions. 

Up to this point, the cosmological principles exhibit nothing but 
the play and product of physical forces, which in their combination 
constitute the material universe. The chaotic elements have come 
into chemical composition ; metals, crystals, subcrystalline rocks, 
earth, water, air, and varied gases have been formed ; but all is as 
yet inorganic, and the earth and waters azoic. The preparation is 
made, and the occasion given for the manifestation of organic exist- 
ence, and here on the latter part of the third creative day we have 
in the record " And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, 
the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his 
kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so." The 
vegetable kingdom was thus introduced, and though at first marine 
plants and the succulent vegetation of marshes appeared, the work 
went on as the changing face of the earth prepared the way, and more 
mature species of shrubs and trees were made. The Mosaic history 
gives the introduction of the vegetable kingdom in its day, but new 
species were newly brought into existence all along down through 
the progress of the subsequent creative epochs. Geology finds 
fossil animals in the same strata with its earliest fossil vegetation, 
but the consideration that all animal life demands organic food, and 
that the plant was necessary as the absorbent of carbonic acid and 
the fixing of many gases in its growth, to clear the atmosphere for 
animal life, the evidence is sufficient that the plant must have 
preceded the introduction of animal existence. The earliest and 
frailest vegetable organisms may have failed to secure their fossil 



394 COSMOLOGY ACCOEDS WITH MOSES. 

preservation, and only the more complete forms of a later creation 
have reached our age. 

Fourth Day. Heayenly Ltjminaeies. The earliest plants 
grew in the primitive mist and vapor, after the atmosphere had be- 
come sufficiently buoyant ordinarily to separate the vapors from the 
waters by the phenomenal firmament, but before it was sufficiently 
buoyant to sustain the dense rain-cloud ; chap. ii. v. 5, 6. And also 
was their growth precedent to the direct warmth and light of the 
visible sun. The earth was too little cooled to permit other than a 
torrid climate upon all its surface, and the vibrations induced by the 
gravitating ether upon the central orb were sufficiently luminous for 
vegetable growth, before they became sufficiently intense to give to 
the sun a luminous envelope and make its face visible on the earth. 
But such luminous atmosphere about the sun must precede the in- 
troduction of animal life. 

The comparatively recent ejection of Mercury, and the consequent 
condensation and contraction of the sun's volume, probably thereby 
the more suddenly occurring, brought its mass and the pressure of 
the gravitating ether upon it in such conformity, that an augment- 
ation and accumulation of luminous vibrations upon its surface was 
effected, and henceforth light vibrated in radiations immediately from 
it, and not as before from the mere tension of the spherical layers 
occasioned by the gravitating ether towards it. The radiations thus 
bring the form of the sun with them, and represent it upon the or- 
gan of vision, " and the greater light that rules the day" was herein 
phenomenally made. This light reflected from the hitherto dark 
face of the moon caused it to appear, and "the lesser light that 
rules the night " was also phenomenally made. The planets that 
had with the earth been successively thrown off in the same system 
would shine by reflection, and the great orbs that were projecting 
their planets, and condensing their central matter into suns, in 
equal series with the process in our solar system, would emit their 
light as their direct vibrations should meet our earth, and thus 
phenomenally " he made the stars also.*' All would transpire with- 
in the same great epoch, and these luminaries would be for signs, 
and for determining cycles of time, and thus on the fourth day the 
lights in the firmament of heaven were made. 

FlftTi Day. Fish, Fowl, and Eeptile. At this era the waters 
still abounded, and the tops of the continents only appeared, though 
the records of geology make it manifest that during the long time 



FISH, FOWL AND EEPTILE. 395 

of its passing the waters had greatly receded, and the portions of 
dry land had become very much elevated and augmented. The 
third and fifth days' creative vrork must have been pretty closely 
consecutive, for the interposing fourth day's work was in reference 
to the lights of heaven, that had been in fact progressing and ma- 
turing from the first, and was phenomenally brought out between 
the third and fifth, but not necessarily separating the onward series 
of events from one day to the other. The order was, the creation 
of plants in the latest and strongest light that preceded the gather- 
ing of a luminous atmosphere about the sun, and that of fish and 
fowl with the earliest shining of this luminous solar envelope. The 
earliest fossils may thus well be of both plants and fish in the same 
rocky stratum. 

Cosmical principles would also determine that the plant should 
not long precede the animal, inasmuch as the plant is for the animal 
and an immediate preparation for his introduction. And these 
principles also determine the order of the animal creation to be the 
marine and amphibian before the more mature mammalian family. 
Oosmological and geological teaching both conform to the Mosaic 
history. Nothing but a divine source could have secured to this 
early and unscientific record such a surprising harmony in so rec- 
ondite a matter. The great heat of the earth was from within ; 
the incipient forming of the sun's luminous atmosphere gave little 
warmth to the earth's surface. No thermal distinction of zones 
appear, and the fossils that would belong to torrid seas and islands 
are found within the Arctic circle. The species conformed to the 
temperature, and as the cooling process went on, whole species passed 
away and others succeeded ; and of thousands that had their day 
in this fifth creative epoch, and have left their remnants in the 
rocks, none now exist among our present species. The molluscs, 
corals and fishes were followed by the amphibian races, and these 
by the reptiles and fowls. Sea and land often alternated over the 
same latitudes ; successive extinctions of whole genera were made, 
and the long fifth day seems to have terminated in a catastrophe 
that abolished almost entirely its latest species. 

The fruitful teeming of the waters with life, as geological fossils 
testify, is fully indicated in the Bible record. " And God said. Let 
the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath 
life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament 
of heaven." The " great whales," of which our translation speaks. 



396 COSMOLOGY ACCOEDS WITH MOSES. 

were the great Saurian monsters of this era, and of the race of rep- 
tiles rather than fishes. 

Sixth Day. Mammals and Man. The broad continents were 
elevated and settled ; the seas had attained to much their present 
boundaries j and then came the work of the sixth and last creative 
day. The more complete and perfect type of the animal organiza- 
tion had now occasion for its development. " And God said, Let 
the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and 
creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so." 
The early portion of this sixth day was thus devoted to the making 
of the animals that bring forth a living offspring and nurse their 
own young. The expressions " creeping thing " and " every thing 
that creepeth upon the earth " refer not to the race of reptiles of 
the previous day's creation, but to the smaller mammalia, like the 
sloth and the mouse. The fossil records reveal that the Herbivor- 
ous preceded and the Carnivorous followed in the order of their 
production. In the palmy days of the brute race great numbers, 
and species of great magnitude; abounded. The Mammoth, and 
still more huge Mastodon and monster Magatherium, with ferocious 
lions, tigers, and hyenas, that exceeded any modern species, have 
left their fossil remains to testify how exuberant and robust was 
brute life in its most flourishing period. Cosmological principles 
and the facts found by science both determine this more perfect 
family of mammals, in the order of vertebrate animals, to this 
latest period of creation ; and that the Mosaic record so exactly 
accords, coming down to us as it does from a period earlier than all 
philosophical teaching, is an abundant evidence that its testimony 
has the stamp and seal of one who was present when the things 
were done. 

The closing of the Day that had introduced the most perfect 
forms of animal life ushered in the crowning product of creative 
power by the making of Man. In him came out, as a living or- 
ganism, that which had all along been the archetype of every earlier 
animal form. A rational spirit was superinduced, and in the image 
of his Maker he had dominion over every hving thing. The world 
found its end in him. In his production the last creative day 
closed, for the Creator's work was done. 

jSeventh Bay. A Sabbath. All creative work ceased on the 
sixth day in the making of man. Nature henceforth goes on in 
the regular order of developed cause and effect, but no originations 



SEVENTH DAT. A SAJBBATH. 397 

of new things take place, either of inorganic matter or of organic 
life. The worlds have reached their point of equilibration, and no 
occasions for new species of beings again occur. God, as Creator, 
ceases and rests from his work, and the world's Sabbath begins 
and lasts till the final conflagration. It has a hallowed relation to 
man's history ; his probation, and coming retribution. God's 
dealings, all through the world's sabbatical epoch, apply directly to 
humanity ; taking judicial recognition of his fall ; introducing a 
promised way of redemption ; applying a preparatory discipline of 
ritual education ; bringing in the Gospel dispensation ; and leading 
on the Church to the completion of Missionary effort in the Millen- 
nial reign of righteousness. The era of the world's Sabbath will 
be followed, immediately, by the opening of the endless day of rest 
in the Gospel Heaven. 



FINIS. 



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